The president of the Lignite Energy Council says the new EPA Clean Power Plan doesn’t take into account the efforts already made by individual states to cut back on carbon emissions.
Jason Bohrer told the Legislature’s interim Energy Development and Transmission Committee the EPA seems to have based a lot of its goals using older, East Coast coal fired power plants. And he says North Dakota’s lignite plants are different.
"Our plants are, by and large, relatively new," Bohrer told the Committee. "They're assumed to have the same potential for efficiency improvements as plants that are twice as old as ours. We're in a significant disadvantage, because we already have efficient plants, and we're asked to improve them more."
North Dakota would be required to reduce carbon emissions 45 percent by the year 2030.
Bohrer also told the Committee – states are not given any credit for renewable energy developed before 2012. And he says a number of wind power projects were built in North Dakota before that date. Bohrer says that’s unfortunate.
"One utility has 30 percent of its capacity already as renewable," Bohrer said. "These guys are already ahead of the game."
North Dakota is suing EPA over the Clean Power Plan. Other states are also suing. Bohrer says the hope is for a judicial stay of the new rule – which could give states more time to work on their responses to that new rule. He says the EPA administrator has already outlined her strategy when it comes to legal challenges to the new rule.
"It doesn't matter if the rule gets struck down or not," Bohrer said. "She says that's because the investments are already made."
Bohrer said that philosophy is already in EPA's response to some of the legal challenges. And he says that's another reason the industry wants a judicial stay.
"It gives us some breathing room," Bohrer said. "It puts EPA of the defensive. We would have a lot of confidence the courts would be leaning toward our argument."
