Dive Summary:

• Some of the nation’s biggest coal utilities, such as American Electric Power, FirstEnergy Corp. and Southern Co., are expected to mount their concerns over pending pollution regulation as Gina McCarthy settles in as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new administrator.
• EPA’s proposed regulation limits emissions from new plants to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. Combined cycle natural gas plants can achieve this limit, but not coal facilities lacking carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Coal groups want the EPA rules to accommodate the use of advanced coal equipment considered more efficient than currents coal technologies.
• Coal groups take issue with the 1990 Clean Air Act called the “New Source Performance Standards,” which dictates the level of tolerated pollutants. Under McCarthy, the EPA may strengthen the mandates to require that coal be as clean as natural gas. President Obama’s new climate goals call for a carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 17% by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.

From the article:

“Conversely, the Institute of Clean Air Companies, which includes Exelon Corp., Constellation and PG&E say that millions of jobs have been created by during the transition to cleaner burning fuels. That trend, the association adds, is on an intractable course. The utilities, which use primarily natural gas and nuclear, are in synch with attorney generals from the Northeast and California.”