A plume of steam billows from the coal-fired Merrimack Station in Bow, N.H.
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Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter
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Energy & Environment
Energy & Environment
The Big Story
Biden proposes power plant rules key to climate agenda
The Biden administration is proposing to require coal plants cut their emissions by 90 percent while placing similar restrictions on some natural gas plants.
The draft regulations for coal are based on the use of carbon capture technology, saying coal plants need to cut their emissions by 90 percent by 2030.
The proposal would also regulate some gas plants, saying the best system for these plants would either be capturing 90 percent of their emissions using carbon capture by 2035 or running mostly on hydrogen energy by 2038.
However, the rule would still leave most gas plants unregulated, as they are projected to apply tojust 23 percent of the power that is produced from gas in 2035.
The rule would be expected to cut 617 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air between 2028 and 2042 — equal to the emissions produced by 137 million passenger cars, or about half of all cars in the U.S. in one year.
The regulations are expected to prompt some coal plants to shut down, rather than choose to comply with the new regulations. They are expected to raise power prices by 2 percent in 2030, 0.24 percent in 2035 and 0.08 percent in 2040, according to the Biden administration.
The power sector is responsible for a quarter of the U.S.’s contribution to climate change.
Welcome to The Hill’s Energy & Environment newsletter, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk — keeping you up to speed on the policies impacting everything from oil and gas to new supply chains.
President Biden and congressional leaders postponed a meeting on debt ceiling negotiations that was scheduled for Friday to allow staff-level talks to continue.
The U.S. Senate passed two Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions Thursday undoing Biden-administration rules regarding the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing a California regulator of approving new oil and gas wells without conducting sufficient environmental review. The wells in question …
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a piece recently that ran under the headline, “There’s a war raging. It’s against normal politics.” Read more
The FBI declined to immediately provide congressional Republicans with a document the lawmakers say outlines an “alleged criminal scheme” involving President Biden and a foreign national, blowing through a Wednesday deadline to produce the unverified information that was subpoenaed by House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). Read more
