As the EPA moves to loosen pollution rules for coal- and oil-fired power plants, the country’s power sector wants to keep complying with the Obama-era standards. The outcome could affect corporate energy management, particularly renewables procurement.
At issue are Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) — also known as the Mercury Rule — federal standards requiring power plants to limit emissions of toxic air pollutants such as mercury, arsenic, and metals. The EPA under President Obama issued a final rule in 2011.
“The 2011 requirements did more to hasten the closure of coal-fired power plants than any other regulation adopted under Obama,” Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis reported in the Washington Post. “Facing the first-ever limits on these pollutants, companies across the country chose to switch to natural gas or renewable energy rather than invest in costly new pollution controls.”
Complying with MATS cost the power industry $3 billion annually between 2012 and 2018, according to the Post. At the same time, the Obama administration estimated that compliance would save Americans save $37 billion to $90 billion by preventing thousands of premature deaths and lost work days, the journalists reported.
Coal industry officials had long been urging President Trump’s EPA to roll back the standards. In late 2018, the EPA released a new proposal that received opposition from legislators as well as business, environmental, and electric power industry groups.
Energy company Exelon has six utilities with around 10 million electricity and natural gas customers. “Exelon argued in comments to the EPA that the rollback could lead existing coal plants in some states to turn off their pollution controls to save money, leading to the spewing of more mercury and other toxic substances into the air,” the Washington Post reporters wrote.
Scott Weaver, director of air quality for the utility American Electric Power, told the paper that his company had already invested in compliance. “We’re happy to comply with this rule,” he said. “Let sleeping dogs lie, so to speak.”
Trump administration officials told the Washington Post that the proposed rule is currently stuck at the White House while staffers debate which cost estimate to use.
A FERC report released last month confirmed that renewables provided the majority of new generating capacity in 2019, according to analysis by the Sun Day Campaign. To date, 225 companies have joined the RE100 initiative, committing to 100% renewable energy, either by producing it themselves or purchasing the electricity from suppliers in the market.
