EPA Proposes to Rescind Clean Power Plan

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published a notice of proposed rulemaking in which it proposes to repeal the Carbon Pollution Emissions Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units (known as the Clean Power Plan).

The Clean Power Plan was promulgated on October 23, 2015 and required states to develop plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants. EPA has stated that it is proposing to repeal the Clean Power Plan because it “is not within Congress’s grant of authority to the Agency under the governing statute.” EPA intends to change “the legal interpretation as applied to section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act (CAA), on which the CPP was based, to an interpretation that the Agency proposes is consistent with the Act’s text, context, structure, purpose, and legislative history, as well as with the Agency’s historical understanding and exercise of its statutory authority. Under the interpretation proposed in this notice, the CPP exceeds the EPA’s statutory authority and would be repealed.”

EPA has not yet determined whether it will promulgate a new rule, under section 111(d) of the CAA, to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.

Update: On November 8, 2017, EPA published a federal register notice announcing that it is extending the comment deadline for the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan by 32 days to January 16, 2018.