Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency

• The refinery was built in the late 1960s and the court agreed that the plain language of the statute did not allow EPA to impose those requirements on the St. Croix refinery.
• The refinery was built in the late 1960s and the court agreed that the plain language of the statute did not allow EPA to impose those requirements on the St. Croix refinery.
• "Despite our disagreement with EPA," Rodriguez said, "Port Hamilton shares EPA's concern for the environment and people of St. Croix.
• Port Hamilton shares EPA's concern for the environment and people of St. Croix.

• ATLANTA, May 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Georgia Natural Gas announced today that its Greener Life program, which helps customers make their natural gas use carbon neutral, offset 250 million pounds of carbon emissions from the atmosphere – more than double the company's record set last year.
• "Our partnership with Georgia Natural Gas and the Greener Life for Business program provides us the opportunity to manage our carbon footprint and continue our mission of environmental stewardship."
• When customers sign up for Greener Life, Georgia Natural Gas offsets the emissions from the customer's natural gas use, making it carbon neutral.
• Georgia Natural Gas makes it easy and affordable for customers to make their natural gas use carbon neutral by taking care of purchasing and retiring carbon offsets on their behalf for a small monthly fee.

• On May 11, 2023, the Biden administration proposed new regulations to curb carbon pollution from existing power plants.
• The new rules replace the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which was proposed in 2015 but ran into multiple legal challenges and never took effect.
• Nonetheless, in a high-profile 2022 ruling, West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Obama administration’s approach exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate power plant carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act.

1. How has the Biden administration tailored these regulations in response to the West Virginia v. EPA ruling?

• The scent of West Virginia v. EPA is all over the new proposed rules.
• The new proposed regulations attempt to thread the needle between meeting the Biden administration’s climate commitments and avoiding another gutting in court.
• The EPA proposes to use CCS to reduce emissions from large coal plants with long life expectancies.

2. Do the draft rules indicate that EPA is responding to energy industry critiques of the Clean Power Plan?

• The proposal takes a tiered and staggered approach to which power plants will be regulated, how stringently, and by when.
• First, the EPA goes out of its way to accommodate coal plants that are already scheduled to close or anticipate shutting down in the next couple of decades.
• Second, the rule’s reliance on carbon capture and storage, in my view, ought to be music to fossil fuel companies’ ears.

3. Do you see legal vulnerabilities in the proposed new rules?

• CCS is an emerging technology that’s not yet widely used, in part because it is so expensive.
• Rather, they will be required to reduce their emissions to a level that could be achieved using CCS.
• This is not a topic that the EPA wants to revisit with the Supreme Court.

4. How do these regulations conform with Biden’s focus on environmental justice?

• And they disproportionately harm the health of nearby low-income communities and communities of color.
• Carbon capture and storage doesn’t reduce these pollutants at any significant scale, nor does it prevent public health, environmental and cultural damage caused by fossil fuel extraction projects.

• A statement from National Grid, US
  WALTHAM, Mass., June 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a fundamental role in addressing climate change through its authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
• National Grid has long been supportive of the agency's ability to provide consistent control on emissions nationwide, offering certainty for business and industry as we build toward a clean energy future.
• National Grid is focused on building a path to a more affordable, reliable clean energy future through our fossil-free vision .
• National Grid is transforming our electricity and natural gas networks with smarter, cleaner, and more resilient energy solutions to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.