EPA Submits Clean Power Plan Replacement to White House: How This Helps Minnesota

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent its proposal to replace the Clean Power Plan, a regulation enacted by the Obama administration to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, to the White House for review. The new regulations could be very good news for Minnesota.

The Clean Power Plan was designed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from U.S. power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. Although this is the national target, the regulations set up targets for each individual state.

Minnesota would be hit particularly hard under Obama’s regulations because Minnesota’s CO2 reduction requirements are more stringent than the national average.

Re-writing the Clean Power Plan will help Minnesota by allowing our fleet low-cost coal plants to continue providing affordable, reliable electricity as long as they implement certain measures to improve efficiency and implement cost-effective actions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Our electricity prices have been skyrocketing, increasing 26 percent faster than the national average since 2007, largely due to our $15 billion investment in wind energy.

The threat of Obama’s Clean Power Plan gave Minnesota regulators and utility companies a reason to build even more expensive and inefficient wind turbines as part of their attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the state’s power sector. Implementing the Clean Power Plan would have dramatically increased the cost of electricity for Minnesota families and businesses.

It will be interesting to learn more about the details of the proposed re-write of the regulations.