"The addition of new wind or solar will certainly require the permitting of new natural gas plants, there's no way around that, and the problems that the commission identified are going to continue to be there," said Jeff Holmstead, a former senior EPA official and now a partner with law firm Bracewell and Guiliani.
The EPA has begun drafting new rules that will govern greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, forcing emitters to apply for operation, construction and facility-modification permits. To prevent up to 6 million new facilities such as bakeries, schools and churches from being subjected to regulation immediately, the EPA proposed to raise in the early years the emission levels to 1,000 times the standard set by law.
But regulators across the country warn that that level is still too low and have asked the EPA to delay--if not halt altogether--the new regulations to at least 2011.
After the surge of protest from state regulators, unions and lawmakers both Republican and Democrat, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said last week she would delay implementing the new rule by around a year. She also said her agency plans to raise "substantially" the emissions limit in the initial stage, but declined to say how much.
Galen Lemei, an advisor to California Energy Commission Chairman Karen Douglas, said in an email that Jackson's proposed modifications alleviated the commission's concerns. Lemei said the EPA's new time line would either allow California to get all of its permitting for natural gas power plants finalized by the middle of 2011, or the EPA wouldn't require applications already in the pipeline to be affected. The EPA declined to clarify.
EPA's Jackson said she plans to temporarily exempt some plants until the second half of next year. But that may not be long enough for many natural gas plants either planned or those that will eventually be needed to expand renewable energy production in the U.S.
An indication of the fear of potential harm from the proposed rule, other states with stringent renewable energy programs, such as Texas, have asked the EPA to cancel its rule-making altogether.
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