Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prepares the first-ever national standards for carbon pollution from new fossil-fuel power plants, the coal industry is embarking, predictably, on its latest disinformation campaign to try to block these desperately needed public health and climate safeguards. New coal plants are dirty, risky, and expensive. No wonder the smart money won’t touch them.
Flacks for the coal lobby have their hair on fire about the rumored content of draft EPA standards that haven’t even been released. They say the standards will kill new coal plants. Haven’t they been paying attention? No one wants to build new coal plants. Except for a handful already underway, no more are planned for the foreseeable future. We don’t know what the EPA draft standards say, but we should all be asking a simple question: Exactly why should the EPA write a standard that is gerrymandered to make room for dirty power plants that the private sector does not want to build?
Let’s look at the facts. Starting about 10 years ago, there were waves of announcements ... Read more
