Section 111(d) and the Clean Power Plan: The Legal Foundation for Strong, Flexible, and Cost-Effective Carbon Pollution Standards for Existing Power Plants

• Date: 01 December 2014

44 ELR 11086 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 12-2014

Section 111(d) and

the Clean Power

Plan: The Legal

Foundation for

Strong, Flexible,

and Cost-Effective

Carbon Pollution

Standards for

Existing Power

Plants

by Megan Ceronsky and

Tomás Carbonell

Megan Ceronsky is Director of Regulatory Policy and

Senior Attorney, and Tomás Carbonell is Senior Attorney,

both with the Environmental Defense Fund.



EPA’s Clean Power Plan is a rational, solid rulemaking

designed to deliver exible, ecient control of green-

house gas emissions from existing fossil fuel-red power

plants. EPA has identied the best system of emission

reduction that allows states and companies to adjust to

locally relevant factors and generation-eet characteris-

tics, deploying the emission-reduction strategies most

appropriate and eective. e Clean Air Act allows a

system-based approach under §111 and, in fact, this

approach is optimal in satisfying the statutory require-

ments by securing the cuts in carbon pollution that are

needed and doing so through locally appropriate and

innovative solutions.

I. Introduction

e Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s

(IPCC’s) recent report, 

, includes several grim ndings:

• Warming of the cl imate system is unequivocal,

and since the 1950s, many of the obser ved cha nges

are unprecedented over decades to mi llennia. e

atmosphere and ocea n have warmed, the amounts

of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen,

and the concentrations of greenhouse ga ses (GHGs)

have increased.1

• It is extremely likely that human inuence has been

the domina nt cause of the observed warming since

the mid-20th century.2

• Continued emissions of G HGs w ill cau se f ur-

ther warm ing and changes in all components of

the climate system. Limiti ng cli mate change will

requi re substa ntia l and sust ained redu ction s of

GHG em issions.3

Climate impacts are already aecting American com-

munities, and the impacts are projected to intensify. e

U.S. Global Change Research Program has determined

that if GHG emissions are not reduced, it is likely that

American communities will experience:

• increased severity of dangerous smog in cities4;

• intensied precipitation events, hurricanes, and

storm surges5;

• reduced precipitation and runo in the arid West6;

• reduced crop yields and livestock productivity7;

1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group

I,    4 (2013), available at http://www.climat-

echange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf.

2. Id. at 17.

3. Id. at 19.

4. U.S. Global Change Research Program,  

 92-93 (2009), available at http://downloads.globalchange.

gov/usimpacts/pdfs/climate-impacts-report.pdf.

5. Id. at 34-36.

6. Id. at 45.

7. Id. at 74-75, 78.

Authors’ Note: e authors wish to express their sincere gratitude

   

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       





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today’s most pressing environmental problems.

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