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.”
Similarly, grid experts have warned that the EPA’s regulations could threaten power reliability at a time when electricity demand is anticipated to surge, driven by the Biden-Harris administration’s electric vehicle (EV) initiatives, programs promoting electric appliance adoption, and the rising energy needs of artificial intelligence (AI). Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie has also highlighted the risk of a significant power crisis looming over the country, as demand increases and dependable supply sources are retired without sufficient, reliable capacity being introduced to replace them.
The Inadequacy of EPA’s Analysis
An analysis entitled EPA’s Green Leap Forward found that the EPA’s Regulatory Impact Assessment was modeling an overreliance on intermittent resources to meet the projected peak demand and reserve margin. By modeling the reliability of EPA’s MISO and SPP grids, the analysis found that wind and solar inevitably underperformed the EPA’s expectations, resulting in widespread rolling blackouts. According to the EPA, it does not analyze reliability implications to the grid, stating “EPA does not conduct operational reliability studies.”
Not only did the EPA not conduct a reliability analysis, but the agency also failed to respond to the grid operators regarding their proposed changes to make the rules more reliable. The grid operators had suggested four reliability mechanisms to create safety valves that would make the rules more workable, but the EPA did not address them. Those mechanisms include creating a sub-category of units needed for reliability; providing clear guidance regarding what would constitute an acceptable state plan that would address regional resource adequacy issues; and creating a bank of regional reliability allowances available to unit owners during emergency conditions. In the Final Rule, EPA did not address these specific recommendations and did not explain why it did not adopt them.
EPA Modeling Issues
The Biden-Harris EPA has developed or revised several regulations, including the Ozone Transport Rule, the Coal Combustion Residual Rule, and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, all aimed at phasing out coal plants. However, the Biden-Harris EPA does not model the combined rules but analyzes them individually. Additionally, the administration has implemented other regulations that are expected to drive up electricity demand, such as mandating electric vehicles in its tailpipe emissions rule and prohibiting certain natural gas appliances in favor of electric alternatives, which are also not factored into the modeling alongside the power plant rule. The Chamber of Commerce was the first to bring attention to these shortcomings in the EPA’s analyses under the Biden-Harris administration. The Biden-Harris administration has positioned the reduction of fossil fuel use as a crucial component of fulfilling its climate commitments to the United Nations, consistently taking steps to hinder both its production and usage.
Conclusion
The regulations and standards that the Biden-Harris administration is promulgating will prematurely shutter baseload plants that can operate 24/7 in favor of intermittent and weather-driven wind and solar power that will result in potential blackouts and brownouts of the U.S. electric grid. While the Biden-Harris EPA finds that its regulations do not show any reliability problems, it also states that it does not perform operational reliability studies. EPA errs in its modeling in that it does not model the cumulative effect of all of its regulations affecting both electricity supply and demand, where reliability problems are likely to surface. In that light, four regional transmission organizations filed an amicus brief to the D.C. Court of Appeals, challenging the EPA’s regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal and new natural gas power plants and asked the Court to remand the rules back to EPA—an action that is unprecedented.
