By 2030, the proposed standards would cause about 1,300 premature deaths, more than 800 hospital and emergency room visits, more than 300,000 asthma attacks, 38,000 school absences and 66,000 lost work days, the EPA said.
In some ways, the EPA regulation is designed to accelerate changes already underway in the energy industry.
Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is declining—no new coal plants have been built in the U.S. in the past decade. Over the same period, the cost of wind and solar power has fallen, and electricity is generated by wind and solar panels. More than three times. Wind now generates more than 10 percent of the nation’s electricity Solar power now produces about 3 percent And growing fast. As a result, there is planet-warming pollution from power plant emissions A decrease of about 25 percent In the last decade, there was no direct regulation.
In recent years, several large electric utilities have announced goals to stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by 2045 or 2050.
“Our emissions continue to decline as a sector, and we predict that will continue regardless of the rule,” said Emily Fisher, Edison Electric Institute’s executive vice president and general counsel. Investor-owned electric utilities.
But some lobbyists say the timeline proposed by the Biden administration is limited by what the industry can accomplish.
“They didn’t come up with those goals on the back of an envelope,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, an attorney representing fossil fuel companies and electric utilities with the firm Bracewell LLP. Companies have real concerns.”
