EPA 'listening tour' precedes coal-plant carbon rule

Nov 3 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Jeffrey Tomich St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Political activists, environmental advocates and employees from utility and coal companies are among hundreds of people from across the Midwest who will converge on a Kansas City suburb Monday afternoon for what amounts to a giant brainstorming session.

The subject is a thorny and emotional one: how to rein in greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and specifically coal-burning plants that collectively represent the nation's largest contributor to global warming.

Monday's meeting is part of the Environmental Protection Agency's 11-city "listening tour" as the agency prepares to draft new regulations to help tackle climate change -- an outgrowth of the decision under President Barack Obama to regulate greenhouse gases under the 40-year-old federal Clean Air Act.

The EPA's task is delicate, complex and politically charged. And the stakes are huge -- a reason that so many people are willing to take a day off of work and travel hundreds of miles to speak for a maximum of three minutes to a panel of regulators.

The EPA normally conducts public hearings after specific regulations are proposed. In this case, the agency is taking the unusual step of hosting a listening session before starting the process.

David Bryan, an EPA spokesman, said more than 200 people had registered for the meeting as of Friday morning -- enough that the agency was looking at having multiple rooms set up for simultaneous comment sessions.

Larry Lazar, an Energizer employee from Eureka, is among those who plan to make the trip from the St. Louis area.

He intends to use his time to share details of what he calls a personal journey from climate science skeptic who relied on conservative media to grass-roots activist who today organizes meetings to warn about the risks of climate change and the effects already being felt.

Lazar doesn't know if his 180-second comment will make a difference. But he believes it's worth the time and expense of traveling across the state.

"My goal is to give the EPA cover for proceeding with what they need to do," he said.

Andy Knott, a representative for Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign in St. Louis, which is ramping up activity in Missouri, said the group's members will encourage the agency to put in place the most protective standards possible.

"We're going to be urging them to adopt the most stringent and most just rule they can," he said.

Knott and other environmental advocates will stress how the United States and the rest of the world is already feeling the effects of climate change -- something that Congress has been warned about for at least the past 25 years. Droughts, floods and wildfires, powerful hurricanes that in some cases have been exacerbated by a warming climate.

The EPA will hear a different message from others in attendance, including Missouri's largest electric utility, Ameren, and Peabody Energy Corp.

Ameren is among the nation's largest buyers of coal and Peabody the world's largest private-sector coal producer. Both are based in St. Louis.

Vic Svec, a Peabody senior vice president, said the company will emphasize Missouri's reliance on coal for more than 80 percent of its electricity and the state's comparatively low electricity rates.

"Ultimately, technology has always solved environmental challenges, and it will here also," Svec said. But development of that technology will take time and continued investment in research and development, he said.

Ameren, too, will urge the EPA to provide utilities with ample time -- at least a few years -- to comply with any regulations.

"This is a very big issue for us," said Mike Menne, vice president of environmental services for Ameren. "This may be the most significant regulatory action affecting our customers that we've ever seen."

The Obama administration has asked the EPA to promulgate a rule by June 1 and to finalize it by mid-2015. States would then have a year to implement the standards. Ameren will ask to have until the end of the decade to meet the standards, Menne said.

Menne said there's no technology available to cut carbon emissions from its coal fleet, which has already been optimized to run as efficiently as possible. And the combination of increased use of natural gas, energy efficiency and renewable energy use is already helping significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.

"We're seeing consistent lower demand on our system, which we think is going to continue for the next several years."

Competing viewpoints from environmental groups and the fossil fuel industry will be on display outside of EPA's regional headquarters in Lenexa, Kan., where supporters of the Tea Party movement and Sierra Club plan separate rallies.

Others will emphasize that tackling carbon pollution is not at odds with having cheap energy and a healthy economy.

Missouri and the rest of the coal-dependent Midwest can have both by implementing policies that further encourage the use of energy efficiency and renewable energy, said Henry Henderson, a Granite City native and Midwest director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago.

An example is Ameren Missouri's energy efficiency program, which has produced $35 million in benefits in the first six months in avoided energy costs. Those benefits, he said, don't include energy retrofit work being done by local contractors -- jobs that can't be outsourced -- and public health benefits from cleaner air and water.

Said Henderson: "We have this opportunity under the (Clean Air Act) to help align policies that both create cleaner energy and create jobs."

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