Clear the Air: Create Jobs.
The EPA has released new standards that seek to clear the air while boosting economic growth and job creation. A penal of experts spoke at the Center for American Progress about the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) new released policy with question and answer session. For the first time ever these standards require energy plants to cut their emissions of more than 80 toxic air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, and lead. The three featured speakers, Bob Perciasepe, Mindy Lubber and W. Thaddeus Miller, talked about the benefits the new regulations could provide.
Bob Perciasepe, the Deputy Administrator of Environmental Protection Agency, made a deep analysis about the cost and benefits of the new rules. He says the new policy not only brings environmental benefits, but also agricultural growth and health benefits like reducing heart disease and preventing premature deaths. Then he stated that the new rule will not jeopardize the reliability of electricity though there are some isolated cases. Lastly, he confirmed the new standards’ job creation function. There will be approximately 31,000 construction jobs and 9,000 maintaining jobs when the policy is being carried out.
W. Thaddeus Miller, the Executive Vice President of Calpine, talked about the affordability and reliability of the proposed rules. According to him, the energy industry is ready for the change. 60% of the units have already complied with the Utility Toxics Rule’s mercury emission standards. A lot of energy companies and utilities have been investing money since 2000 in anticipation of this rule. They “have more capacity then we (they) need” and can afford some of the capacity to come offline when upgrading the system or replacing the new machines. For some isolated cases, EPA would allow one year of extension concerning reliability. More than 22,000 megawatts of Calpine’s fleet consists of natural gas-fired combined cycle turbines is both environmental-friendly and efficient.
Mindy Lubber spoke last as the president of Ceres, the leading coalition that works with a bunch of institutions to address sustainability challenges. She confirms the importance of the new rules. She emphasized the “future value” of the new rules on how they will affect our future generation. In her opinion, clearing the air and protecting the environment is a “nonpartisan issue” that should receive the attention from every industry since this issue is profoundly matters to our life and our families. Moreover, the rules are expected to increase high economic profits and job growth. According to a study they did in UMASS, the money invested by power sector will create 1.46 millions jobs in each of the next five years.
Watch the full version of the discussion here.
