Oftentimes, when the federal government unveils a massive plan to regulate an industry, the industry responds with one voice. The Environmental Protection Agency's issuance of the Clean Power Plan wasn't one of those times.

The electric-power industry is just starting to come to grips with the 1,560-page plan. But the initial views expressed by companies and groups within the industry are disparate and not always what they'd appear to be at first glance. 

As would be expected, the companies that are most dependent on coal to produce power are the ones that stand to be most financially hurt by the plan, while companies with lots of natural gas plants or renewables stand to benefit most. 

In the days after the plan was released, however, few companies were voicing their support or opposition too loudly. 

Some might have not wanted to get into a food fight with other industry members, while others might have concluded that some version of the plan would be adopted no matter what and saw no reason in angering the EPA. 

Additionally, "many companies own a mix of renewable power, natural gas plants and coal, so they may be conflicted," said Mike Lorusso, managing director and group head of the CIT Energy Finance unit of Livingston, N.J.-based CIT Group Inc.

Some of the industry groups that represent utility interests are definitely conflicted, because their members have differing views on the plan, which has precluded them from taking a stand on it themselves.

The upshot is that much of the power industry seems ready to sit out the legal battles over the plan in favor of devising the best methods for complying with it in light of their own situations.

"The fight (against the plan) seems to be led more by coal-producing states who stand to lose the most if the coal-mining business becomes extinct," Lorusso said. "Most energy companies such as utilities and (independent power producers) can adapt by changing their power-plant mix."

Indeed, 15 states have filed a petition for an emergency stay with the U.S. Court of Appeals against the plan. It could take years for the legal challenges to unwind, so power plant operators can't afford to simply wait things out.  

The Clean Power Plan requires each state to come up with its own plan for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from its power plants in 15 years to a level specified for each state by the EPA. States can attain their prescribed level directly by requiring two kinds of power plants - those with fossil-fuel-fired electric steam generation units (which typically burn coal or oil) and those with natural-gas-fired combined-cycle generating units - to meet carbon dioxide performance rates specified in the plan. 

They also can attain their prescribed level indirectly by combining emission reductions with other measures, such as efforts to reduce power consumption and promote renewable generation, or cap-and-trade programs.

Overall, the plan sets a goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the power industry 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. The 32-percent figure is higher than the 30 percent figure the EPA originally proposed, but states have until 2022, instead of 2020, to start making reductions. States must submit plans by Sept. 6, 2018 at the latest; states that don't submit plans will have to follow a plan devised by the EPA.

Outside the electric-power industry, the lines over the plan are pretty hard and fast, involving all of the usual suspects. 

Opponents are led by the coal industry, which, again, is no surprise given that much of the emissions reductions required by the plan are expected to come from reducing the use of coal to produce power. 

The plan's supporters include business groups that stand to gain from the plan or want to take a stand against global warming, as well as the predictable array of environmental groups.

Inside the industry, supporters include wind and solar power companies and their trade groups, while detractors are most prominently represented by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, whose members get 70 percent of their power from coal. 

Beyond that, however, the demarcation gets tricky.

"The utilities that have large nuclear or natural-gas (generation fleets), or a combination of those, are going to tend to be much more comfortable with this plan and see it as a competitive edge," said Michael Cooke, an attorney who is of counsel to the law firm of Greenburg Traurig and works out of its Tampa, Fla., office.

On the other hand, two of the biggest utilities that fit Cooke's description seemed to take extra care in their comments. 

Exelon Corp., which has 23 nuclear reactors at 14 locations, and NextEra Energy Inc., which has no coal plants, plenty of natural-gas plants and is getting heavily into renewables, both voiced support for the EPA's goals, but said they were still evaluating the plan.

"Exelon has long supported efforts to reduce carbon and other dangerous air emissions from the power sector while maintaining reliable and affordable energy for our customers," the Chicago-based company said. "We are evaluating EPA's final rule and look forward to continuing to engage with EPA, states and all stakeholders on the most cost-effective means to achieve targeted greenhouse gas reductions."

Juno, Fla.-based NextEra also said it was "still evaluating the final version of the rule" while it looked forward to "continuing to work with the EPA and with the states on implementation."

Meanwhile, of the big power generators with large coal fleets, only Georgia-based Southern Co. really unloaded on the plan, sounding in the process like critics who complain that President Obama is exceeding his authority in many of his initiatives. 

"As Southern Co. continues its initial review of the Clean Power Plan, we believe that EPA extended beyond its authority in creating the most far-reaching environmental rules in the agency's history," the Atlanta-based company said in a statement it put out after the plan was released.

Southern Chairman and CEO Tom Fanning reiterated that view on MSNBC's Squawk Box, saying, "When you think about policy, you generally don't think about regulation, you think about Congress." The point he was making was that federal lawmakers should have the chance to review the plan and either approve it or not. 

Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co., which has the most coal-fired generation capacity in the country, applauded the EPA for moving the compliance target to 2022 from 2020, but cautioned, "simply moving the date forward a few years won't be enough to address the negative reliability impacts if the initial reduction targets are still too stringent."

Underscoring the industry's dissonance over the plan, NRG Energy Inc. was pretty upbeat about the plan, even though New York-based brokerage firm Sanford C. Bernstein pegged it as a company likely to be hurt should the plan result in the establishment of a national system for trading carbon dioxide emissions credits. Nonetheless, the Princeton, N.J.-based company noted the EPA's emission-reduction target for 2030 "is less aggressive than our own corporate reduction goal of 50 percent below 2014 levels by 2030."   

Of the industry groups that weighed in on the plan, the American Public Power Association was the most critical. 

The organization represents community-owned electric utilities, which get 44 percent of their power from coal. "It appears at first blush that EPA has made substantial improvements over the proposed rule," APPA said the day after the plan was released. "However, APPA is concerned about unrealistic targets set for some states that will impose substantial additional costs on consumers."

One group that would seem to have good reason to support the plan would be the Association of Energy Services Professionals, given that many of its members draw up, implement and monitor demand-response and energy-efficiency programs. 

"It is not a war on coal," the Phoenix, Arizona-based organization's president and CEO, John Hargrove, said prior to the plan's release. "It is a desire to reduce overall emissions and reduce the emissions relative to operating the electric grid in the United States."

Despite that view, AESP didn't file comments with the EPA about the plan while the agency was revising it. That's because its members also include utilities. "We're not an advocacy organization, primarily because we're made up of such a diverse membership group," Hargrove said.  

In other words, the AESP has to be careful about what it says.

The Edison Electric Institute, which represents all U.S.-based investor-owned electric companies, also has to walk a careful line in what it says on the plan, as its members include both supporters and opponents. 

In a statement released the day the plan was issued, EEI President Tom Kuhn said his organization raised a number of issues with the EPA while it was formulating the plan, and the agency "seems to have responded to some of our key concerns."

"The final guidelines appear to contain a range of tools to maintain reliability and better reflect how the interconnected power system operates," he said.

 Its statement went no further, leaving out any of the objections heard from at least some of its individual members.

While the plan may have put EEI in a delicate situation, it put some state utility regulators in downright awkward ones. That's because they will be devising ways to comply with the plan at the same time that their state is fighting it in court. 

"They're going to be busy regardless of whether their state embraces or hates the rule," said Chuck Gray, the executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. 

If their state embraces the plan, the regulators will be working on a plan of their own. But if their state decides not to create its own plan, they'll have to work to bring their state into compliance with the plan the EPA issues for their state. "They're going to have a role to play, I think, pretty much everywhere," Gray said.

That work may not require as much heavy lifting as anticipated. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists in July released the latest version of its "States of Progress" analysis, which shows the progress states have made toward meeting their 2022 and 2030 emissions goals under the Clean Power Plan. In it, the UCS said that 31 states have made commitments that will put them more than halfway toward their 2022 goals, and 21 of those states were in position to surpass them. The UCS also found 20 states are on track to be more than halfway toward meeting their 2030 goals.

The states opposed to the plan, led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, filed an emergency petition asking the appeals court in D.C. for an emergency stay of the act's deadlines. 

Interestingly, of the AGs that filed the petition, three come from states (Kentucky, Ohio and Wisconsin) that are making good progress toward Clean Power Plan compliance, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

AGs from 15 other states, New York City and the District of Columbia responded to the filing with their own statement supporting the plan and saying they would fight efforts to block its implementation.

If the plaintiffs prevail in their request for emergency relief, the government likely will appeal. As the U.S. Supreme Court typically looks at full cases and not at appeals involving emergency relief, it might not agree to hear the appeal, leaving the case to proceed in the D.C. Court of Appeals with the plan's implementation on hold, according to Jim Wrathall, a counsel in the Washington, D.C., office of Sullivan & Worcester.

The plaintiffs' arguments center on a discrepancy in the drafting of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that resulted in the House and Senate versions of them not being reconciled, meaning two versions of the amendments exist. 

The plaintiffs argue that, under one of those versions, the EPA can't regulate carbon dioxide from power plants under Section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act - which the EPA has cited as the legal authority for the Clean Power Plan - because the EPA already regulates power plants for certain hazardous air pollutants under Section 112 of the act.

The EPA has countered that the amendments don't conflict and that it is acting within its authority.

Even if emergency relief blocking the EPA from implementing the plan is granted, many utilities and states are likely to move forward on devising ways to comply with it, not willing to risk that it ultimately would be thrown out. 

In fact, as the Union of Concerned Scientists' recent report showed, they've been moving forward already. 

That's probably another reason why few companies or groups in the utility industry are willing to battle the plan; they think their time and money would best be spent by preparing themselves to deal with it.

Legislative attempts to overturn the plan are unlikely to succeed, at least in the short term. That's because such efforts would have to survive a filibuster by Democrats in the Senate and a veto by the president. 

If a Republican were to win the 2016 presidential election, the veto threat would go away, but few political observers think Republicans will be able to win enough Senate seats to enable them to get a bill to overturn the plan through a Democratic filibuster. 

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