The Clean Power Plan was an Obama administration policy aimed at combating climate change that was first proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in June 2014. The final version of the plan was unveiled by President Barack Obama on August 3, 2015. Each state was assigned a target for reducing carbon emissions within its borders, which could be accomplished how the states saw fit, but with the possibility of the EPA stepping in if a state refused to submit a plan. If every state met its target, the plan was projected to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation by 32 percent relative to 2005 levels by 2030, and would have reduced other harmful air pollution as well.
In March 2017, President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating that the EPA review the plan. In June 2017, he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, and on October 9, Trump-appointed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt announced the formal process to repeal the Clean Power Plan would begin on October 10, 2017.Multiple sources:
In May 2019, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced plans to change the way the EPA calculates health risks of air pollution, saying the change was intended to rectify inconsistencies in the current cost-benefit analyses used by the agency. This became the Affordable Clean Energy rule. On June 19, 2019, the EPA issued the final Affordable Clean Energy rule (ACE), which replaced the Clean Power Plan. On January 19, 2021, the last full day of the Trump administration, the D.C. Circuit vacated the Affordable Clean Energy rule and remanded to the EPA for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. The court characterized the ACE as a "fundamental misconstruction" of environmental laws. The ruling did not reinstate the Clean Power Plan; however, it did create the opportunity for the Biden administration to improve and clarify the rules.
In 2022, in the case West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court curbed the EPA's ability to broadly regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants as was done in the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan was no longer in place, but if it had been, the ruling would have struck it down.
In 2024, the Biden Administration issued a suite of rules called the Greenhouse Gas Standards and Guidelines for Fossil Fuel-Fired Power Plants, sometimes called the "Clean Power Plan 2.0", to replace the Clean Power Plan and ACE.
Aims The final version of the plan aimed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electrical power generation by 32 percent by 2030 relative to 2005 levels. The plan focused on reducing emissions from coal-burning power plants and increasing the use of renewable energy and promoting energy conservation. White House officials also hoped the plan would help persuade other countries that emit large amounts of carbon dioxide to officially pledge to reduce their emissions at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Although the plan did not go into effect, its emissions reduction goal was met 11 years early in 2019 due to increasing energy efficiency, construction of wind and solar power, and changes in energy market prices that resulted in shifting from coal to natural gas.
Requirements The plan would have required each state to meet specific standards with respect to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and to submit emissions reductions plans by September 2016. States could coordinate with other states to develop multi-state plans. The EPA divided the country into three regions based on connected regional electricity grids to determine a state's goal.
States were not told the means they had to use to meet the target, but if a state had not submitted a plan by the deadline, the EPA could have imposed its own plan on that state. States could implement their plans by focusing on three building blocks: increasing the generation efficiency of existing fossil fuel plants, substituting natural gas generation for coal-powered generation, and substituting generation renewable sources for fossil fuel-powered generation.
Benefits The EPA estimated the Clean Power Plan would have reduced the pollutants that contribute to smog and soot by 25 percent, leading to 140,000 to 150,000 fewer asthma attacks among children and 2,700 to 6,600 fewer premature deaths. Net climate and health benefits were estimated between $25 billion and $45 billion per year beginning in 2030. The average American family would have saved an estimated $85 per year in energy bills in 2030, with a total savings for consumers projected at $155 billion from 2020 to 2030. Enough energy would have been conserved to power 30 million homes and 30 percent more renewable energy would have been generated annually by 2030, with hundreds of thousands of jobs created.
Reduced emissions
According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), coal in 2015 in the United States produced 1,364,000,000 metric tons of . This amounted to 71% of emissions from the electric power sector. By switching this coal generation to a cleaner source such as wind power, emissions could be significantly reduced. According to the League of Conservation Voters, in 2015, the Clean Power Plan "established the first national limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants—our nation's single largest source of the pollution fueling climate change" and was "the biggest step" the United States had "ever taken to address climate change."
The Clean Power Plan was one of the first major initiatives in the world to curb internal greenhouse gas emissions. The Paris Agreement was agreed upon in October 2016 and entered into force in November 2016. It aims to keep global temperature rise this century "well below" 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In order to enact the plan, 194 UNFCCC member nations have signed the treaty, 172 of which have ratified it.
The poorest, most underdeveloped nations emit the lowest levels of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses. According to the World Bank, greenhouse gas emissions from large nations such as the U.S. and China disproportionately affect developing nations that don't have the infrastructure to combat climate change-induced drought, famine, and other natural and anthropogenic disasters.
Economic environmental justice for households The economic impact of the Clean Power Plan (CPP), not including the impact on employment, can be measured by many variables including its impact on electricity prices and health expenditures. In four major studies conducted on the economic impact of the CPP, findings varied widely due to the assumptions made and the variables analyzed. Ultimately, the effect of the CPP on households is most influenced by how states decide to meet their emissions goals, allocate the revenue generated by the carbon tax, and collaborate with other states.
Data on the economic impact of the Clean Power Plan on electricity prices relies heavily on four studies conducted separately by Synapse Energy Economics, M.J. Bradley & Associates, NERA Economic Consulting, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Synapse Energy Economics relied on assumptions from a 2012 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) study on future potential of energy and reported findings indicating that the CPP will decrease the cost of electricity. M.J. Bradley & Associates rely on data from National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and reported generally optimistic findings, with large decreases in costs due to the CPP. NERA Economic Consulting, funded by coal lobbyists, relied on U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data with pessimistic assumptions, resulting in pessimistic findings stating that some states may even face double-digit price increases. The EPA drew from the NREL for data and made middle-ground assumptions, ultimately reporting findings that are similarly "middle-ground" compared with other studies. The ability to measure and determine the impact on at-risk communities is confounded by these varying conclusions.
Differences between states aside, three key at-risk groups are lower-income communities, higher-income communities, and coal miner communities. Lower-income households may disproportionately experience increases in expenditures due to a large share of their consumption falling into the energy-intensive category, including products and services like electricity, heating, and gasoline. However, lower-income communities are also likely to benefit from increased air quality, and therefore decreased health care expenditures. In order to combat any negative impact of the CPP, states may choose to allocate roughly 10% of their carbon pricing revenue to protect low-income communities. Higher-income communities may be disproportionately affected by the CPP because of decreased income levels, due to greater dependence on capital income, rather than wages. Coal miners, making up 0.057% of the total U.S. employment, may be disproportionately affected by the CPP due to potential layoffs in the coal industry. In contrast, coal miners disproportionately benefit from increased clean air and decreased health expenditures. Just one to five percent of the revenue generated from a moderate carbon price would offset any detriment to coal miner communities.
Health impact According to a 2017 analysis of the Energy Innovation's Energy Policy Simulator, a repeal of the Clean Power Plan would lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions of more than 500 million metric tons by 2030, and by 2050, that figure would rise to more than 1,200 million metric tons.
Furthermore, the EPA's proximity analysis concludes that a higher percentage of minority and low-income communities live near power plants when compared to the national averages, increasing risk of disease and death due to toxic particulate matter emissions and air pollution.
The EPA has determined that greenhouse gas pollution causes global temperature warming, leading to harmful changes to the environment and human health globally such as increased drought and increased famine due to decrease in water supply and agricultural production. According to the EPA fact sheet on the Clean Power Plan, climate change is responsible for everything from stronger storms to longer droughts and increased insurance premiums, food prices and allergy seasons. The populations most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change include children, older adults, people with heart or lung disease and people living in poverty. The repeal of the Clean Power Plan will increase greenhouse gas emissions, expediting the damaging environmental changes due to climate change that disproportionately affect subaltern populations around the globe.
Employment and community engagement impact As aforementioned, a major part of the Clean Power Plan's mission is to regulate and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry. Opponents of the Clean Power Plan have stated that the attempt in reducing these emissions is also going to be reducing the number of jobs in the United States because of the shrinkage in the industry sector. More specifically, there will be a 19% reduction in the iron and steel production, 21% reduction in cement production, and 11% in refining production. On the other hand, those who argue favorably for the Clean Power Plan have addressed the employment concerns of critics of the Clean Power Plan. While jobs will be decreasing in the industrial sector, there has also been an increase nationwide in the solar sector, wind sector, and energy efficient sector.