Manatt's Craig Moyer, chair of the firm's Land, Environment and Natural Resources division, spoke to Power Engineering about the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) recently announced rules that aim at cutting carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent by 2013.
As reported by Power Engineering, the EPA said it would also cut particulates, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent below 2005 levels, and decrease electricity bills by 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and reducing demand on the electricity system. States will be given guidelines to develop plans to meet state-specific goals to reduce emissions and given the flexibility to design a program that works for their own situation.
Moyer said the rule was more balanced than he expected, but that it is based more on politics than climate change.
"Looking at the quantifications of how the benefits and costs are set up, many of the benefits are associated with traditional health-based benefits and with reducing criteria pollutants as opposed to climate change benefits," Moyer said. "Those are notoriously difficult to quantify, but they are also the stated basis for the rule."
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