National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn released the following statement on this week’s publication of the final report on the reliability of the nation’s power grid by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC), the international regulatory authority established to evaluate and improve the reliability of the base load power system in North America. The report, titled “Reliability Impacts of EPA’s Proposed Clean Power Plan,” confirms the organization’s November preliminary finding that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants is a risky policy that threatens further damage to supplies of reliable power to American consumers:
“This report by energy experts is a persuasive rebuttal to an environmental agency that continues to deny the damage its past regulations have done to the grid and fails to recognize the threat posed by its new regulations. NERC’s exhaustive study of the likely impacts to the grid, already weakened by EPA’s Air Toxics Rule, adds to an already compelling case for the nation’s governors rejecting EPA’s Clean Power Plan.”