Editor’s Note: Cross-posted from CRE’s CCS Interactive Public Docket. For more information about CRE’s option for addressing EPA’s CCS regulatory plans through the Data Quality Act, see here.
From: Energy Examiner | Washington Examiner
An article earlier this week by Washington Examiner energy and environment Writer John Siciliano on meetings between the White House and the coal industry is getting some attention.
The story was about the National Mining Association pressing the Office of Management and Budget to change EPA’s technology standard for cutting emissions for new coal-fired power plants.
Siciliano reported that the mining group wants EPA to change the technology standard in the “New Source” emission rules for new power plants to include commercially-available technology. Association officials are urging EPA and the White House to recast the technology standard to include the Turk Plant in Arkansas, the $1.8 billion state-of-the-art power plant that is actually in operation.
Jim Tozzi, who established OMB’s regulatory review process in the 1980s, was baffled after other reporters contacted him to follow up on the story. He was scratching his head because the coal industry was using an argument he had presented to them a year ago, but they were uninterested, he said in an email. Tozzi indicated in an email that the industry was uninterested in the Turk Plant scenario at the time, but EPA suggested they might entertain it.
Tozzi currently runs the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a regulatory watchdog group.