EPA aims for early 2019 finish to CO2 rule replacement

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to finish work on its replacement for federal CO2 standards for power plants by early next year.

The agency today told a federal court that it hopes to issue its proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan in late summer or early autumn so that that it can finalize the regulations in "the first part" of 2019.

"The Clean Power Plan replacement rulemaking is a high priority for the agency, and EPA is committed to completing it as expeditiously as practicable," the agency said in a filing with the DC Circuit Court of Appeals asking it to keep litigation against the Clean Power Plan on hold.

EPA sent its proposed replacement to the White House for interagency review earlier this month. While that process often takes 90 days to complete, EPA told the court it has asked the Office of Management and Budget for an expedited review.

EPA has not said how it plans to replace the Clean Power Plan, which it is repealing through a separate process. When it solicited public comment earlier this year, the agency suggested it would focus on measures that can be carried out on-site at a power plant, such as heat-rate improvements for boilers.

That would be in line with EPA's determination in the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan that the agency under former president Barack Obama overstepped its authority by including measures such as emissions trading and shifting to natural gas and renewable energy sources.

Many electric utilities have lobbied EPA to write a scaled-back version of the rule, saying it is better than the uncertainty of having no regulation, as EPA has a legal obligation under the Clean Air Act to issue some sort of power plant CO2 rule. But such an approach is almost certain to trigger a new round of court challenges.

A scaled-back replacement would likely lead to much lower emissions reductions than the Clean Power Plan, which EPA had projected could cut power plant CO2 by 32pc from 2005 levels by 2030. The original rule would require states to develop plans for meeting CO2 targets for 2022-2030. EPA in the text of the regulation said that heat rate efficiency improvements "lead to only small emission reductions" and, if implemented in isolation, could actually lead to an increase by making coal-fired plants more competitive compared with other sources.