Yet again the Wall Street Journal's opinion pages are serving as a tool to promote industry voices, this time with a piece co-authored by the President of the National Mining Association and a lawyer the Association hired to sue the EPA over its mercury standards.
The WSJ attack cites the same debunked industry reports and rehashes the same faulty arguments. The only fresh point involves legal quibbling about whether the CPP regulations are "appropriate" because they set limits on state emissions instead of individual sources, and even this is an apparent attempt to apply the MATS ruling to the CPP, despite the substantial differences.
Because the chicken-little hysterics will no doubt continue, we've put together some of the best resources for rebutting common attacks, the three most common of which falsely argue the CPP will negatively affect cost, reliability and jobs. Climate Nexus also has a resource guide and a short, sharable video busting the myths if you only have 90 seconds to Clear the Air.
On costs, one study found the plan will reduce electricity bills, saving consumers $10 a month and a cumulative $45.8 billion by 2030. Vox has a story with more on savings, including a helpful list of reports.
On reliability, a former utility regulator praised the CPP's flexibility, while a survey finds that 60% of utility executives think the EPA should stay the course with the CPP or make it even stronger! Germany—which provides a useful case study as the country leading on renewable energy generation—just met 78% of its electricity needs from renewables and is proving that smart grid management makes it possible to run the grid on clean energy. In fact, wind and renewables—when combined with storage—can keep the lights on during times when the grid is stressed. As renewable energy takes off, critics are less likely to criticize their energy generating capacity. In fact, Germany has encountered the opposite problem where renewables sometimes produce TOO MUCH energy.
Finally, there are job figures that blame Obama for the decades-old decline in coal jobs, but they fail to mention the quarter million jobs that the Clean Power Plan is projected to create. With 170,000 employees, the solar industry alone already employs more Americans than the entire coal sector, which is now down to 93,000 employees.
Expect to see more mudslinging as the fossil fuel industry attempts to pollute the public discourse around the Clean Power Plan. After all, pollution's what they do best!
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