Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin today commended President Barack Obama and EPA for proposing new regulations that will limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions allowable from existing electricity-generating power plants. President Obama's action follows rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and other federal courts that greenhouse gases are air pollutants and, therefore, EPA has a duty to regulate them under the Clean Air Act.
EPA's proposed rule would require power plants to reduce their emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, but would allow individual states flexibility to determine how those reductions are achieved.
Fossil fuel-fired power plants are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States contributing to climate change, responsible for 40 percent of the nation's man-made carbon dioxide emissions in addition to emitting other pollutants that contribute to smog, acid rain and haze as well as the mercury contamination of lakes, streams and fish. "This proposal by President Obama and EPA is moving in the direction that Rhode Island and Northeast states are already going," said Attorney General Kilmartin. "These important and cost-effective regulations will benefit all with cleaner air and help protect our environment from the costly effects of global warming."
Rhode Island is one of nine Northeast states participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the nation's first market-based regulatory program to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.
RGGI is a cooperative effort among the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont to cap and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.
President Obama's action today is in response to the 2011 U.S. Supreme Court case of New York v. EPA. This case was part of an integrated legal strategy pursued by the Rhode Island Attorney General's office and other states that also resulted in the Supreme Court's historic 2007 decision of Massachusetts v. EPA, in which greenhouse gases are recognized as pollutants subject to regulation under the federal Clean Air Act. Section 111 of the Clean Air Act is the basis for this electricity sector regulation proposal; rules for air pollutants must be issued by the EPA when "any air pollutant (i) for which air quality criteria have not been issued or which is not included on a list published under Section 108(a) or 112(b)(1)(A)". The Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants in Mass v. EPA, and thus the EPA is required to regulate them under Section 111.
These regulations announced today are in a draft stage, and will not be finalized until June of 2015.