Politics

Ga. Lawmaker Proposes A Way Around US EPA’s Climate Rule

February 5th, 2016

Plant Scherer, near Macon, is one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the country.

Gene Blythe / Associated Press

A bill proposed in the Georgia Senate seeks to exempt the state from the Obama administration’s major climate change rule. It’s the latest in the state’s varied responses to the Clean Power Plan.

The Clean Power Plan, finalized last year, requires states to cut greenhouse gas emissions by closing coal-fired power plants. Each state has an assigned goal for emissions reductions and is supposed to devise its own way of achieving it.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is overstepping its bounds in mandating the cuts, according to many Republicans, including state Sen. Charlie Bethel from Dalton. He said the Clean Power Plan could negatively affect energy customers and companies.

The alternative he’s proposed, which is similar to ideas suggested in a few other states, is an Interstate Power Compact for states to collaborate on without the federal government.

The idea of the compact is for states to work together to regulate air pollution, in whatever way they deem appropriate. The Interstate Power Compact would prohibit the EPA from forcing its own Clean Power Plan compliance strategy on any state that is a member of the compact.

“The compact, if adopted by Georgia and one or more other states, and approved by Congress, would essentially exempt member states from that rule,” Bethel told a Georgia Senate committee Thursday afternoon.

At the hearing, a few supporters of the EPA’s rule spoke against the proposed bill.

“The Clean Power Plan is not the enemy here in my opinion. Pollution is the enemy,” said the Rev. Kate McGregor Mosley, a Presbyterian minister and head of Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, an environmental organization.

And the Georgia Environmental Protection Division said it doesn’t agree with the approach.

“We generally agree with the underlying premise of this bill, that there are real questions of the EPA’s authority here,” said EPD assistant director Mary Walker. “That said, we don’t believe Senate Bill 311 is necessarily the best path to pursue those questions.”

The Georgia EPD is working to figure out how to implement the Clean Power Plan here. The state is also suing the U.S. EPA to stop the plan altogether.

The bill has now been assigned to a study committee.