CALIFORNIA: EPA’s proposed “Clean Power Plan” (CPP) will increase electricity prices and jeopardize the reliability of America’s electric grid. But despite the warnings, President Obama made good recently on a promise to require steep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions.
Under a new mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), states are now required to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity sector by 32 percent (from 2005 levels) by 2030. Specifically, each state must submit a compliance plan by 2018, with interim targets set for 2022, and final targets in place by 2030. His CPP plan will potentially lower global CO2 concentrations by less than 1 percent, and all for a theoretical reduction in temperatures of 0.01 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.
It may sound like a worthwhile goal to some ardent climate alarmists, but the price tag for this new set of rules is stunning. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates the plan’s annual cost at $51 billion in lost GDP and 224,000 jobs lost. Essentially, President Obama has embarked on a course of replacing reliable, affordable energy with a haphazard experiment in “renewable” energy and the mass transformation of America’s power system.
