| The Biden administration’s newest ambitious climate rule isn’t even out yet, but Republican-led states are already gearing up to attack it. EPA’s forthcoming regulation slashing carbon pollution from power plants would be the strongest-ever effort to tackle one of the nation’s leading drivers of climate change. The agency’s last major attempt to clean up the power sector, a 2015 rule that formed the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s climate policies, was struck down by the Supreme Court last year — highlighting the challenges the Biden administration faces in making this policy stick, write Pamela King, Lesley Clark and Jean Chemnick. While the power sector’s greenhouse gas emissions have fallen over the years, they still amount to the second-largest source of climate pollution in the country. (Transportation is No. 1.) And 60 percent of U.S. electricity was generated last year by burning coal, natural gas or petroleum. President Joe Biden pledged to zero out energy emissions by 2035. EPA’s regulation, which could change before it is finished and formally announced in the coming weeks, would not dictate what kinds of fuels or technologies power companies must use — an aspect that could help it survive legal scrutiny. Obama’s policy pushed utilities to switch from coal to cleaner sources of power, which the Supreme Court ruled overstepped the agency’s authority. The justices prohibited EPA from proposing similarly broad changes to the entire power system. The Biden policy would instead restrict greenhouse gas emissions from individual power plants to such a degree that in order to survive, fossil fuel-burning plants would either have to capture their carbon dioxide emissions or use other fuels, like hydrogen, writes Jean Chemnick. The move could also slow the growth of new fossil fuel plants, as zero-carbon sources like wind and solar expand. No commercial power plants in the United States use carbon capture now, but EPA views the technology as ready to go, two people familiar with the agency’s discussions told Jean. And Biden’s landmark climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, offers generous tax credits for companies that capture their carbon pollution. Still, there’s no guarantee the proposal will survive the coming attacks from fossil fuel proponents. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who led the charge against the Obama rule, said his office is prepared for the next fight. “We are eager to review the EPA’s new proposed rule on power plants, and we’ll be ready once again to lead the charge in the fight against federal overreach,” the Republican attorney general said in a statement. Plus, if Republicans regain full control of Congress and the White House, they could try to use the Congressional Review Act to repeal the rule, something GOP lawmakers did repeatedly to Obama-era regulations during the Trump administration.
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