The Clean Power Plan as it is Currently Proposed ...What Does it Look Like?

The Environmental Justice Committee of the TMC sees these problems with the current proposal of the Clean Power Plan (CCP): The CCP puts natural gas in the “clean” column:

Methane is a short-lived but very powerful greenhouse gas. In the all-important 20 year time scale, it is 86 times more efficient at heating the atmosphere as is carbon dioxide. As mentioned above, the climate benefit natural gas provides during consumption is quickly canceled thanks to leaks that occur at an alarming rate at every step in the product life cycle of natural gas and continued leaking that occurs “beyond the grave,” as old wells leak without proper maintenance. Natural gas has no place in a true Clean Power Plan, yet Obama’s plan allows for it to be among the energy sources states can choose to achieve their targets. The CCP guarantees increased reliance on natural gas: States like Pennsylvania that have gone all-in on shale gas development will elect to transition from coal-fired power plants to natural gas-fired power plants rather than transition to clean, sustainable, renewable energy alternatives. When climate scientists are telling us to leave 80% of all fossil fuels in the ground, trading one fossil fuel for another makes no sense economically or in terms of tackling climate change. Coal, oil, natural gas, all fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases, must be left in the ground. The CCP doesn’t limit how much a state can rely on gas to meet its target: States choosing to meet their targets by relying 100% on natural gas would not be out of compliance with the terms of the Clean Power Plan. Even if no state is brazen enough to propose something so extreme, they are certainly under no pressure to take the kind of aggressive steps needed. The CCP institutionalizes and enables pollution: The public is absorbing the costs of harmful health impacts, disease, drinking water contamination, and environmental degradation that accompanies natural gas development. Taxpayers are burdened with paying for government subsidies and the costs of regulatory loopholes that incentivize natural gas. There is no attempt to realize these hidden costs to provide parity with renewable energy sources, which will lead to perpetuating these unacceptable impacts. The CCP means we can kiss a fracking moratorium or ban goodbye: In his paper, “A Bridge to Nowhere, Methane Emissions and the Greenhouse Gas Footprint of Natural Gas,” Dr. Robert Howarth of Cornell University notes that converting from coal to natural gas will require “unprecedented investment in natural gas infrastructure and regulatory oversight,” the kind of investment you don’t make in a temporary bridge fuel. Although Pennsylvania’s Clean Power Plan is still being drafted, a proliferation of natural gas power plants, attempts to incentivize pipeline development, and the Wolf administration’s recent announcement of methane rules bear out Howarth’s warning. If the Clean Power Plan is not changed to remove natural gas as an alternative to coal, we will continue to see more power plants, more pipelines, more compressor stations, and more wells. The things we will never see are a moratorium or ban on fracking.

Wanda Guthrie is environmental activist, Thomas Merton Center, GreenFaith and Pennsylvanians Against Fracking Steering Committee member.

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