Biden's carbon proposal is unworkable, US power sector warns
By Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici
(Reuters) -U.S. power plant owners warned the Biden administration on Tuesday that its sweeping plan to slash carbon emissions from the electricity sector is unworkable, relying too heavily on costly technologies that are not yet proven at scale.
Top utility trade group the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for revisions of the proposed power plant standards, which hinge on the widespread commercial availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low-emissions green hydrogen, adding the agency's vision was «not legally or technically sound.»
«Electric companies are not confident that the new technologies EPA has designated to serve as the basis for proposed standards for new and existing fossil-based generation will satisfy performance and cost requirements on the timelines that EPA projects,» EEI said in a public comment released on Tuesday on the agency's deadline for feedback.
Resistance from the EEI and other energy-related groups poses a potentially big challenge to the administration's climate agenda.
U.S. President Joe Biden has a goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2035 in the power sector, the source of a quarter of the nation's climate-warming gases. That target is a central part of Washington's pledge to halve U.S. greenhouse gas output by 2030 as part of an international agreement to fight global climate change.
Proposed in May, the EPA plan would for the first time limit how much carbon dioxide power plants can emit, after previous efforts were struck down in court.
West Virginia, which led a lawsuit against the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, also said it and 20 other states were opposed to the rule because the
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