The Environmental Protection Agency finalized the “Cross-State Air Pollution Rule” that mandates coal-fired utilities in 28 states to reduce emissions of chemicals that can pollute farmland and bodies of water. EPA officials say the new standards will cost industry less than $1 billion a year, while preventing 34,000 premature deaths and thousands of serious health problems annually.

 

Owners of coal-powered plants, however, see the regulation in far more draconian terms, claiming it will be “among the most expensive ever imposed by the agency” on the industry. The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity claims its own study showed the rule, when combined with other new EPA proposals, could kill more than 1.4 million jobs by 2020.

 

The regulations, which take effect in 2012, will eliminate millions of tons of emissions that cause acid rain, smog and soot. An estimated 240 million Americans will be affected by the changes. The EPA also estimates that health and other benefits from the new rule will be between $120 billion and $280 billion a year by 2014. 

-Noel Brinkerhoff

EPA Finalizes Expensive New Regulation (America’s Power)

E.P.A. Issues Tougher Rules for Power Plants (by John Broder, New York Times)

Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) (EPA)