Key Takeaways
The Biden-Harris administration is threatening the reliability of the grid with its power plant rule and rejecting the advice of those responsible for ensuring blackouts do not occur, according to 4 regional transmission organizations (RTOs) who filed an Amicus Brief to the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Many states, in a lawsuit, have argued inadequate or politicized analysis was done by the EPA to justify its new rule, which would force the closure of existing coal plants and ban new natural gas plants, resulting in disruption to the electric grid.
The power plant rule compels plants to use technologies unavailable commercially to meet the standard.
The RTOs, representing almost half the nation’s population, provided EPA with options designed to avoid blackouts, but EPA did not address them, according to the brief, the filing of which is precedent-setting for the organizations.
On Friday, September 13th, four regional transmission organizations (RTOs) filed an Amicus Brief to the D.C. Court of Appeals, contesting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal and new natural gas power plants. They requested that the Court send the rules back to the EPA for reconsideration. The four organizations—PJM, the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), Southwest Power Pool (SPP), and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)—serve a broad area from New Jersey to parts of New Mexico, impacting over 156 million Americans. Their brief argues that enforcing the current regulations could threaten the reliable delivery of power, contradicting the Biden-Harris administration’s assertions that these rules would not compromise long-term power reliability. The grid operators filed the amicus brief in support of legal challenges from red states against the regulation.
In April, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its power plant regulations, asserting that the rules would “enhance public health while maintaining reliable electricity delivery.” According to these regulations, existing coal plants and new natural gas facilities must cut their emissions by 90 percent by 2032 to remain operational beyond 2039. The EPA effectively mandates that power plants achieve these reductions through carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. However, the four grid operators argue that this technology is too costly and unproven to implement within such a stringent timeline without risking grid stability.
The amicus brief outlines in detail that “without additional modification, the compliance timelines and related provisions of the Rule are not workable and are destined to trigger an acceleration in the pace of premature retirements of electric generation units that possess critical reliability attributes at the very time when such generation is needed to support ever-increasing electricity demand because of the growth of the digital economy and the need to ensure adequate back-up generation to support an increasing amount of intermittent renewable generation.” “Such inevitable and foreseeable premature retirement decisions resulting from the Rule’s timelines will substantially strain each of the Joint [independent system operators’] / [regional transmission organizations’] ability to maintain the reliability of the electric power grid to meet the needs of the citizenry and the country’s economy.”
In their brief, the grid operators also argued that the EPA’s assertion that carbon capture and storage (CCS) represents the “best system of emissions reduction” is questionable. They pointed out that the compliance deadlines “are based on overly ambitious and inadequately supported assumptions as to target dates for commercialization of CCS.” “Those [best system of emissions reduction] determinations then drive both the rate and timing of compliance which, in turn, will drive the premature retirements of generation sources that will threaten the reliability of the electric grid even before the compliance date in the Rule.”
