- Ten States Granted Easements to Lessen Costs -
Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens has filed suit on behalf of the state of Georgia against the Environmental Protection Agency. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution story states that Olens filed suit because the the rule would cause a major disruption in how the state produces electricity. Sixty-seven percent of Georgia Power’s electricity is produced by the affected coal-fired power plants.
Attorney General Sam Olens said the rule would cause major changes to the way electricity would be produced in the state.
“The EPA has overstepped their authority with a heavy-handed federal takeover of the enforcement of environmental regulations,” Olens said in a statement Thursday. “More significantly, implementation of this rule will be extremely damaging to our already struggling economy.”
The EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule imposes caps on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide in 27 states. Ten of those states, including New York, New Jersey and Texas; were granted cost-lessening adjustments to the regulation.
Georgia Power can either install expensive pollution-reduction machinery in its coal-based power plants or Georgia can buy “emission allowances” from other states. Either way look for your power bills to increase. So what are emission allowances? It appears they are just the recycled, Carbon Tax Credit idea that failed miserably in Europe.
So you thought carbon tax credits were dead because they were such a stupid, expensive, socialistic idea that did nothing to lessen pollution? No, they’re back because Washington loves stupid, expensive socialistic pollution regulations that do nothing to actually lessen pollution. I call them: Son of Carbon Tax Credits or Friday the 13th Part 2012.
From an EPA paper on the regulation:
The rule allows air-quality-assured allowance trading among covered sources, utilizing an allowance market infrastructure based on existing, successful allowance trading programs. The final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule allows sources to trade emissions allowances with other sources within the same
program (e.g., ozone season NOX) in the same or different states, while firmly
constraining any emissions shifting that may occur by requiring a strict emission
ceiling in each state (the budget plus variability limit). It also includes assurance provisions that ensure each state will make the emission reductions necessary to fulfill the “good neighbor” provision of the Clean Air Act
So we have the ability to pay another state for the right to pollute or we can pay to install expensive anti-pollution equipment – and what better time to do so than in a lengthy period of high unemployment? All because it’s more important to have more regulations than more jobs.
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So tell us how the emission credit market works in Georgia. Who would southern have to buy from, is a broker involved, what’s the spread, just how does this process work ?
Smells like opportunity of the first order to profit from the power companies and blame them for the higher bill for the good of the climate.
salty,
Please see above for the limitations on trading $ for imaginary emission allowances.The state has an overall imaginary “limit” so we would likely have to trade with a state not under mandate.
I’m afraid I don’t know if a broker is involved or if the federal government can tax the transaction.
I agree it is an opportunist’s wet dream, which leads me to believe those opportunists may have planned for this all along.
Why do I sense a ghost of Al Gore? And why does the sound of ” ….deem to have….” echo eerily from the recent past?
Good for Sam.
Although I wish our public policies could be adopted/disputed through the legislative process rather than the judicial process…
I agree on both counts.
Of course the EPA’s imaginary “emission allowances” were never voted on by any legislature, either.
I concur in the moral support for Attorney General Olens – he is serving Georgians with distinction.
Why wouldn’t Georgia Power just install the pollution controls?
See Calypso’s initial comment, “$”.
But how much, I mean the top 4 execs at the Southern Co. bring in more than 10 mil. They have the cash.
Check it out for yourself, but I seem to remember a January, 2012, deadline for implementation. It’s kind of expensive to shut down power plants and then start them up again. I don’t think there is a way to install the additional equipment before then.
Scrubbers? It’s just the air we breathe. I’m sure the pollutants are good for you. Let’s up the dosage and maybe we can really make the tops of those skyscrapers disappear in smog! :-/
David,
Please explain how purchasing something that does not exist, called “emission allowances”, from other states not under this order makes the air cleaner?
And no one is suggesting that we add additional pollution, but Georgia Power may be forced to shut down some of its coal-burning plants because of the high costs involved.
That, of course is no big deal because it will just increase unemployment in a state harder hit than the national average and increase the cost of energy in a state which will drive up the cost of products made in Georgia, lessening their overall sales and creating more unemployment. And it does nothing to reduce pollution. Why is this good for anyone other than bureaucrats and fools?
“Please explain how purchasing something that does not exist, called “emission allowances”, from other states not under this order makes the air cleaner?”
Ken, please show me where I said anything about purchasing “emissions allowances”. at all. anywhere. I’m only interested in reducing pollution… and how do you do that? You either install scrubbers or switch to a greener form of electricity generation. I agree with you – one state selling another the right to pollute does nothing to reduce pollution… it only creates more red tape and government bureaucracy. I’d much rather have clean air.
David,
Good. Now we only have to address the concept of marginal return on investment (scrubbers) and you’re home free. To be more specific the Law of Diminishing Returns, and see if the cost outweighs the benefit. It’s one thing to say that we want air that is 100% free of pollutants and another to say we are willing to bear those costs.
Okay, how about taking a look at it from a different angle? I frequently like to use the example quote “the right to swing your fist ends at the other person’s nose”. In other words, does Georgia Power have the right to pollute the air I breathe? A bit more specifically – what if it pollutes the air that is in the air space over and around the house I live in? Similarly, if I lived next to someone that decided they liked pouring pollutants all over the ground and they started running onto my property… is that not a violation of my rights / damaging my property?
So I guess what it comes down to, to me, is does Georgia Power have the right to pollute the air around my house… that I breathe… that affects my health and the health of my family? I would say no.
From a fiscal standpoint, I suppose they could possibly pay for medical care for the surrounding communities, but I would guess that those costs would be higher than the cost of the scrubber.
So should you pay your neighbors for the pollution that comes from your vehicles, your fireplace, your livestock?
Should you pay more if you have items delivered to your house in order to pay for the pollution created when the packaging and packing were made and for the fuel to bring it to you?
If you’re on Georgia Power aren’t you already getting a monetary benefit from the pollution is the form of lower rates?
Should the various eco-idiocy groups be sued for preventing the construction of nuclear power plants – and slowing down the construction of plants currently?
Why is the entire state – including the under-industrialized southern half being punished because of the propensity to pollute of the much more prosperous, industrialized northern half?
If you make anything, there will be waste. That waste is pollution. No pollution means no industry, no jobs and no prosperity. So we can’t have zero pollution and that means an acceptable level. What is the acceptable level?
Is the cost in terms of jobs and money worth the fractional reduction of pollutants? That’s the real question.
David,
As a libertarian, you should know that where you buy a home is your choice and therefore your responsibility. You are responsible for taking into account the current and the likely future air quality of your property.
Now if 27 states are under this mandate then 23 (or 30 if you’re President Obama) are not under the mandate and have cleaner air. I’d hate to see you go, but voting with one’s feet is, I believe, something we agree upon.
David,
That was much more harsh than I intended. I apologize for the way I wrote that.
Pollution needs controlling including power plants, auto and all other sources. Some take time & lots of money.
Some would be easy. Outlaw all wood burning from fireplaces/stoves and require permitting for all outdoor burning. Acquire tracts of land for water mgmt. (aquifers). Get tough on ag runoff, fertilizers, street drainage, land clearing and stream/river/lake buffers. Nah, it is politically easier to go after a few big utilities & then let them pass on the costs.
As for coal plants, it takes 3 to 5 years to install the equipment and costs $300 million to $1 billion per plant. The EPA timing and GP capabilities will involve the purchase of credits and electricity from other sources as well as a significant price increase to cover those costs. The new, very expensive, truck diesels running through Atlanta (according to diesel mfgrs.) emit cleaner air than they take in, so maybe that bar is ok for the time being ?
No problem establishing reasonable levels and a timeline to get ‘er done but why create a tradeable emission credit out of political vapor ?
Will each state establish some bureaucratic agency with lots of high paid public servants to oversee Goldman Sachs & Al Gore corporations soaking the utilities and ultimately the public ?
In answer to your second to last question, please see my initial post above.
C,
I got the bit about “sources” suggesting the deal would be between producers and not the states getting paid as Ken opined (he might have meant other state utilities). Then I vaguely recall reading about Texas setting up some state agency to oversee their bunch and we have all read the stink on carbon credits in the “open” marketplace. The devil is in the details which appears to be allowing states to have some flexibilities.
(modify) oh, your comment – $ – yes – agree
There’s a huge difference between burning wood (which is considered renewable by many) and burning coal. I’m not sure I’d place those two in the same bucket here.
Not only “considered” renewable, but actually renewable. You know, because trees grow.
Not very fast though
Yep, and that’s why I included that semi-caveat. It is renewable much more so than coal, but unless you’re using sawmill leftovers or growing hemp or other biomass that grows quickly specifically for the purpose of being used as fuel, it can take a good 15 to 20 years or more for the replacement tree to grow in it’s place.
The subject is pollution not renewables.
I see pine trees as big asparagus.
We have a lot of coal and are selling it to china.
Right. So let’s work through this then, shall we? When you burn wood, it emits carbon dioxide back into the air. But what happens as a new tree grows to replace that tree? It absorbs carbon dioxide. It’s a cycle over and over and over again. Wood burning does not release any more carbon dioxide than the eventual biodegradation of the wood if it was not burned. However, the carbon dioxide released through incineration occurs at a much faster rate than decomposition because burning wood takes a few seconds and decomposition takes years.
Coal, on the other hand, remains buried below the surface until mined and eventually burned. It takes what… millions of years to develop?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2005/oct/15/thisweekssciencequestions.uknews
David
You have jumped from pollution to renewables and now to burning wood to generate electricity (which is off point but a good idea in some areas for a fraction of the demand).
Coal may not be renewable but we have a lot of it. We should figure out how to use it wisely rather than shut down power plants and sell it to China for all their new plants.
How wood burns:
If you take a close look at a burning log, you will notice something strange. In most instances, fire appears only over a portion of the log. At the same time, smoke is coming off, usually from a part of the log remote from the flame itself. This smoke is composed of a complex mix of volatile incomplete combustion products that are being “boiled” or distilled out of the wood before they can be burned. Without a means of igniting these products and further burning them before they leave the combustion chamber, these incomplete combustion products become creosote which can cause chimney fires, and also turn into “particulates,” which can be a major source of air pollution as well as indoor air quality problems.
Olens is a out-of-touch if he thinks he will win this. First, the Clean Air Act is the legislative basis. The Congress did not overstep its boundaries because this is clearly an interstate commerce issue. This lawsuit is DOA
GAPolitico,
There is no interstate commerce unless you count the forced purchase of the non-existent fiat currency known as “emission allowances”. In addition, the courts are already involved because this regulation’s previous version was found to have flaws in a 2008 court decision. See: http://www.epa.gov/airtransport/pdfs/CSAPRFactsheet.pdf :
“This final rule replaces EPA’s 2005
Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). A December 2008 court decision found flaws in
CAIR, but kept CAIR requirements in place temporarily while directing EPA to
issue a replacement rule. In order to replace CAIR as quickly as possible,
addressing the problem of air pollution that is transported across state
boundaries, EPA is adopting federal implementation plans, or FIPs, for each of
the states covered by this rule. This final Cross-State Air Pollution Rule meets
the Clean Air Act requirements and responds to the court’s concerns.”
– The CSAPR Fact Sheet
GAPolitico,
Congress? What the Hell does Congress have to do with this non-legislative, tyranny-by-bureaucrat act of the EPA? My members of Congress did not vote on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and neither did yours.
Wood burning does not release any more carbon dioxide than the eventual biodegradation of the wood if it was not burned.
Tell that to the envirowackos who killed the proposed Georgia Power biomass operation in Warren county.
Electricity bills headed for double-digit increases
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/587431/201110071819/Shocking-Costs-Of-Environmentalism.htm
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