EPA Nominee Gina McCarthy Embodies Climate Change Issue

Ken Silverstein | Apr 15, 2013

The Environmental Protection Agency is determined and pugnacious but yet it is compliant and respectful.

Now those traits are on trial as EPA decides the regulatory fate of limiting greenhouse gases from new power plants. EPA says that it has to plow through thousands of public comments while industry says that there is no technology available to satisfy regulators’ desires.

“They’re now trying to figure out whether they need to start from scratch and come up with a new proposal, or whether they can finalize some creative version of it without running afoul of the law,” says Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA air administrator during the Bush II years. “The big problem they face is that the Clean Air Act just wasn’t designed to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.”

The rules now say that new power plants cannot release more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour. All combined cycle natural gas plants can achieve that, but that remains out of reach for any coal facility -- unless it has access to carbon capture and sequestration technologies. Coal groups say that the rules should make room for advanced coal equipment that is more efficient than today’s prevaling coal technologies.

Environmentalists counter that alternative fuels are cheaper and cleaner. Utilities are not building coal plants for those reasons, they add, noting that devaluing the proposed regulations serves no purpose other than to prop up a dying industry.

That brings the conversation to President Obama’s nominee to be the next EPA administrator, who is Gina McCarthy. She served under Lisa Jackson, leading the efforts to write rules affecting carbon emissions and climate change -- and she remains a committed foot soldier in that fight. By the same token, she has also served under three Republican governors including Mitt Romney.

“This is one of the greatest challenges of our generation and our great obligation to future generations,” says McCarthy, during her U.S. Senate confirmation hearing last week, in reference to a question about the climate change and its impact on the coal sector. “I am convinced that those steps can and must be pursued with common sense. And I firmly believe they can produce not only benefits for public health, but also create markets for emerging and new technologies and new jobs.”

Steady Ahead

McCarthy’s inclination to buckle down and move steadily forward will be curtailed by President Obama’s desire to achieve consensus and to facilitate economic growth. But the nominee has a track record that includes getting Connecticut on board with the cap-and-trade program implemented in the Northeast. Proponents of that law say that it is creating jobs and reducing emissions.

In any event, McCarthy is the embodiment of the climate change issue. During her hearing, Senator John Barraso, R-Wyo, wanted her to be aware of those who had lost their jobs because of tougher coal regs. But Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT. replied that this debate is bigger than Gina McCarthy and one that really extends to the validity of global warming and whether citizens are to believe the climate scientists or the industry lobbyists who are paid to derail progress.

Part two of the whole discussion is what will happen with the existing coal fleet and how federal regulations would be written to incorporate them. At issue is a provision of the 1990 Clean Air Act called the “New Source Performance Standards,” which dictate the level of pollutants that can be released from power plants. The EPA may strengthen the mandates to essentially require coal be as clean as natural gas.

The broader economic and policy topic is whether to throw a lifeline to coal or to let it sink. Natural gas prices will rise because the demands being placed on it are destined to limit supplies. As such, coal groups are saying that the industry is committed to improving the technologies and to continually becoming cleaner.

Its opponents, though, disagree, noting that new clean air regs have been percolating since the 1990s and that the industry has spent the last decade trying to reverse them -- not comply with them. And while green groups agree that natural gas prices will probably rise, they are saying that the cost of wind and solar technologies will assuredly fall.

What’s going to happen to the future of climate change regs and Gina McCarthy? Both will move forward but each will get tempered to comport with the political and legal realities as well as the Obama administration’s overall economic agenda.

EnergyBiz Insider has been awarded the Gold for Original Web Commentary presented by the American Society of Business Press Editors. The column is also the Winner of the 2011 Online Column category awarded by Media Industry News, MIN. Ken Silverstein has been honored as one of MIN’s Most Intriguing People in Media.

Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein

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