The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a number of new rules that would significantly impact coal and natural gas-fueled power plants. The effort mirrors a similar one in Europe which ultimately resulted in increased, rather than decreased, use of fossil fuels.
The agency’s regulation would significantly limit the ability of traditionally-fueled power plants to generate electricity. The federal government aims to cut more than 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions over the next three decades.
The plan includes efforts to restrict coal and natural gas power generating facilities, which represent about 60% of the nation’s electricity.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan wrote that the plan would “help deliver tremendous benefits to the American people.”
The rules come after previous efforts to decarbonize the American economy have not succeeded.
The most visible proposal was the Green New Deal, which could have cost $93 trillion. The effort pushed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other prominent Democrats did not make it into law.
Still, the Biden administration’s efforts to restrict traditional fuels could mean significant increases in Americans’ energy rates.
According to Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA), the new rules would “effectively ban new natural gas electricity facilities.”
He said it would “take a whole herd of unicorns to power the energy future envisioned by the Biden administration.”
The Biden admin's pursuit of this green hallucination is threatening our national security.
If we continue down this radical path, we may see a day where we don't have enough reliable, baseload power to meet our nation’s energy needs.https://t.co/KJpwal8dqb
— Steve Daines (@SteveDaines) May 11, 2023
The information comes as a number of similar proposals in Europe led to increased dependency on Russian oil and natural gas. The closure of a number of reliable power plants in countries like Germany left the country with few options after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began last year.
Following the 2011 Japanese tsunami and Fukushima nuclear power plant crisis, Germany closed many of its nuclear power plants.
The decision has led to increased carbon emissions, both from the closure of carbon-neutral nuclear energy and Germany’s new dependence on coal for generating electricity.
As a result, the central European nation now generates more than one-third of its total power using coal.
