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Basin Electric raising questions about new EPA carbon rules

Basin Electric Power Cooperative officials are digging into the new EPA rules on carbon emissions.

And as Prairie Public’s Dave Thompson reports, Basin is already raising a number of questions about the new rule.

The new rule says carbon dioxide emissions need to be reduced by 30 percent by the year 2030. And Basin officials are digging into the rule -- to find out what it means.

"The Clean Air Act was never intended to be the place to manage carbon, and we don't think it should be in there at this point," said Basin senior legislative representative Dale Niezwaag. "The Clean Air Act was more to look at specific chemicals in the emissions that are controllable. Carbon, to this point, has not been listed as a pollutant."

The new EPA rule is more than 600 pages long – and Basin staff is looking closely at it to see all the ramifications.

"What you're seeing here is energy policy developed by regulation," said Niezwaag.

"This should have been part of a comprehensive energy policy," said Basin senior legislative representative Steve Tomac. "It makes more sense, rather than to focus on taking a single element like that, and try and legislate an energy policy around a rule process. It just seems wrong."

Tomac says a real concern in all this is reliability.

"We have learned how to run a very reliable system with baseload power fueled by coal," said Tomac. "As we move into other resources, other fuels that aren't as stable as coal, that's going to be a challenge."

Basin is a generation and transmission cooperative – meaning it provides power to member co-ops. Just under 60 percent of that generation comes from coal. Basin says about 15 percent comes from renewable sources – and another 15 percent comes from natural gas.

"We have never said one fuel is the answer," said Niezwaag. "We've always said you need a diverse energy portfolio to do things right. Over the last 10 to 15 years, we have not stuck our heads in the sand -- we've been very aggressive in putting in wind energy, gas energy -- looking at new options. We;re saying, keep everything in the mix."

Basin is planning to make formal comments to the EPA during the 120-day comment period that follows the publishing of the new rule.

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