Next week the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release its Clean Power Plan that set’s a goal for each state to reduce carbon pollution in an effort to slow down climate change and its negative and costly consequences. States will be able to develop their own plans for how to achieve their carbon pollution goal. But the bottom line is that the nation will cut carbon pollution from power plants by 30% by 2013 from 2005 levels.
Those who don’t believe in climate change and thus reject the findings of science will have a field day attacking the Obama Administration. They will say that the new EPA regulations will cause everyone’s electricity costs to skyrocket thus crushing the economy and jobs.
Of course, these folks are wrong just as they have consistently been wrong before about every new regulation. They’ve cried wolf so many times I don’t know why the media continues to give them a forum for their purely partisan rantings. But I guess someone saying the sky isn’t falling doesn’t make for a good news story.
But at least now there is a new study that gives those of us who believe in science and support carbon pollution reduction something to fire back at the climate deniers about the economic impact of the anticipated EPA regulations.
The study (“Low-Carbon Electricity Pathways for the U.S. and the South”) from next door in Georgia concludes that complying with the new EPA regulations “would produce substantial collateral benefits. These include lower electricity bills, greater GDP growth, and significant reductions in SO2, NOx, and mercury emissions.”
The lead researcher for the study, Marilyn Brown of the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech, outlined how states can slow electric rate increases, achieve the EPA emission goals while powering up the economy.
That sounds like a win, win, win. That is unless your real goal is to make your political opponents lose, lose, lose.