Trump and Pruitt’s Big Three CPP Attacks: Isolation, Denial and Trickery

EPA formally filed the paperwork to begin repealing the Clean Power Plan yesterday, holding a closed-door call with conservative allies in lieu of a more open briefing ahead of the announcement. Politico, which was on the call, reports that an EPA official described a potential replacement plan that lines up with the Oklahoma plan Pruitt wrote in 2014 (a possibility we’ve discussed previously).

And despite an explicit mention in the repeal plan that says they’re not taking comment on the Endangerment finding, an official told Heartland Institute director Jay Lehr to submit a comment disputing the Endangerment finding, saying that it would “be especially beneficial for us to consider”. (In case you’d like to do the same, comments may be sent to [e-mail]. Include Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355 in the subject line of the message.)

Pruitt’s basic legal argument is that the CPP went beyond its authority when it tried to regulate “beyond the fenceline.” In plain English, the EPA claims it doesn’t have the authority to ask utilities to trade dirty coal for clean energy, so it can’t regulate beyond the fenceline of a power plant. Unfortunately for Pruitt’s reasoning, the “beyond the fenceline” idea has significant precedent. Scholars at the Institute for Policy Integrity authored a working paper in December of 2015 that lays out the many precedents for the CPP’s approach: Mercury Air Toxics Standards, Large Municipal Waste Combustors, Cross-State Air Pollution, 2005 Clean Air Interstate rule, and Regional Haze trading program.  

Then there’s the cost-benefit analysis changes they use to justify repeal. The EPA’s press release identified three key areas of cost-benefit analysis that have changed to reflect this administration’s preference for alternative facts. Thanks to the leaked draft last week, these three arguments were addressed in an op-ed in the NYTimes on Monday by Richard Revesz and Jack Lienke, two of the authors of the 2015 Institute for Policy Integrity report.

First off, Pruitt’s math dictates that the EPA should only consider domestic costs of climate change, not international, isolating ourselves from the world. But the atmosphere doesn’t dole out climate damages in proportion to who has emitted what, so this is an arbitrary reasoning. In fact, when the refrigeration industry challenged the Department of Energy on this point in 2015, a federal appellate court ruled it was neither arbitrary or capricious to do so. This legal precedent will make it hard for Pruitt to argue for this calculation while still pretending like he cares most of all about the rule of law.

When it comes to the billions of health benefits from the CPP’s reduction of non-CO2 pollutants, Pruitt simply says they don’t count--a claim NRDC’s John Walke calls “scientific fraud.” After all, just because the CPP’s explicit purpose isn’t to reduce NOX, SOX or P.M 2.5 pollutants doesn’t mean it doesn’t. But apparently thousands of deaths, thousands of kids having asthma attacks and thousands of heart attacks are just the price we’ll have to pay for not inconveniencing the fossil fuel industry. (Worth noting that Steve Milloy, former coal executive and undercover pro-smoking shill, counts this as endorsing his view. This capitulation to the shameful world of professional denial is perhaps why Pruitt signed this repeal alone in a dimly lit office.)

Finally there’s a bit of accounting trickery that shifts energy efficiency spending from the avoided costs to the benefits side of the ledger. Obama’s EPA put them in the cost side because facilities had to spend money on efficiency upgrades, which would then pay off in terms of reduced generation. But Trump’s EPA didn’t like that. Per Revesz and Lienke in the Times: “As a result, the EPA’s cost projections now include almost $20 billion of generating expenses for electricity that the agency’s own analysis shows would not be produced with the plan in place.”

Three dirty tricks add up to a great big treat for the fossil fuel industry. Looks like Halloween’s come early this year.

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