Senate Hearing on Clean Power Plan Stay

On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a hearing, "Implications of the Supreme Court Stay of the Clean Power Plan." According to Energy and Environment Daily (subscription required): "The committee will hear from a lawyer for utilities that oppose the plan, the sponsor of Missouri state legislation to halt planning activities, and the CEO of a rural electric cooperative who has cheered the high court's action," in addition to the director of the NYU School of Law Institute for Policy Integrity and the chair of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
 
In new research released today, RFF’s Joshua Linn, Dallas Burtraw, and Kristen McCormack conclude that the conditions supporting the Clean Power Plan stay based on economic harms to the coal sector are not met. Burtraw notes in a blog post that the stay will most likely have little to no impact on emissions outcomes in the near future because the court’s decision does not stay the changes that are already happening in the electricity sector." Linn also notes: "Because the plan requires gradual emissions reductions using existing technologies, meeting the emissions targets is unlikely to be all that costly." He concludes that "The legal and political uncertainty created by the court challenges and the upcoming presidential election present a major obstacle to states’ efforts to keep costs low."
 
See more analysis by RFF experts on EPA’s Clean Power Plan.