WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Mining Association (NMA) released the following statement on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) widely publicized planned release of New Source Performance Standards for GHG Emissions from New, Modified and Reconstructed Fossil Fuel-Fired EGUs; Emissions Guidelines for GHG Emissions from Existing Fossil Fuel-Fired EGUs; and its planned repeal of the ACE rule; this statement comments on publicly available information as of May 10 about the EPA’s announcement scheduled for May 11.
“Our industry has been at the forefront of calls to increase support for carbon capture. We believe – as so many international experts have said – that the world can’t achieve long-term, sustainable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions without vastly more momentum around carbon capture development and deployment for all fossil fuels. What is needed is a carbon capture moonshot, with funding, permitting improvements, and decisive, dedicated leadership from the U.S. to make these technologies broadly commercially and economically viable and globally replicable. Mandating their use in a rulemaking before this technology is technically and fully economically demonstrated is nothing more than unlawful showmanship reinforcing a destructive agenda.
Each one of the rules coming from the Biden administration’s EPA is designed to make it impossible for states and utilities to make decisions based on the merits of what keeps the lights on and electricity inflation low, forcing them to make decisions solely based on the EPA’s desire to end coal powered generation in the United States. The coal fleet continues to perform an outsized role in many states and communities, providing dispatchable fuel diversity and security, and ramping up power supply during periods of surging demand when other sources of power cannot. EPA’s indifference to the repercussions of its decisions on our ability to provide reliable, affordable electricity to Americans is simply reckless especially when other federal officials are calling it a crisis.”
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