4 item(s) were returned.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released draft rules on September 20th, to limit carbon emissions from new coal power plants. The proposed rules are part of President Obama’s broader Climate Action Plan aimed at combating climate change and improving public health, according to the EPA. Under the rules, new coal-fired power plants would be limited to 1,100 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour, or could opt to meet stricter average emissions limits that grant additional operational flexibility. The rules also would require new plants to implement partial carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. Critics of the proposed rules argue that… [more]
View Insight
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed amendments to Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) requirements in an attempt to address industry concerns over revealing confidential business data. The GHGRP collects greenhouse gas data from forty-one source categories to “help us better understand where greenhouse gas emissions are coming from and improve our ability to make informed policy, business, and regulatory decisions,” according to the EPA. Calculating emissions within many industries involves equations that require detailed data, much of it considered confidential by the affected industry. Under current rules, such data would be categorized as “inputs to emission equations” and have… [more]
View Insight
Co-Executive Director
The Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy, American University
The European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) is an extremely important component of global climate policymaking. It represents more than 80% of the global market value of emissions trading permits and serves as the cornerstone of the EU’s response to climate change. Moreover, a number of other States and sub-national actors, such as California – which has the second largest carbon trading program in the world – have either linked their emissions trading systems to the EU-ETS, or contemplate doing so in the future. However, with the price of allowances plummeting a startling 83% from 2008-2013 the EU-ETS is abjectly… [more]
View Insight
As the US nears the “fiscal cliff,” the idea of a revenue-neutral carbon “tax swap,” which would see revenue from a carbon tax used to reduce other taxes, while driving innovation in energy efficiency and alternative energy, has been proposed by a number of policymakers and academics. A new report from the Institute for Energy Research argues against the carbon “tax swap,” pointing to technical and pragmatic flaws, such as the probability of emissions “leaking” to other, less regulated regions, like China. A report from MIT, however, found that a carbon tax would have multiple benefits, such as reducing emissions,… [more]
View Insight