V&E Climate Change Report - Special Issue: EPA's Proposed Greenhouse Gas ESPS

On June 18, 2014, the EPA published a proposal in the Federal Register to create greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for existing power plants under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act (the existing source performance standards or ESPS). In setting the performance standards under the proposed rule, the EPA has for the first time required “beyond-the-fenceline” reductions, meaning that the GHG emission rate targets set in the rule cannot be met through installation of additional controls at affected power plants alone. This first-of-its-kind proposal will no doubt generate a significant volume of comments and subsequent litigation to determine whether the broad view of utility regulation EPA seems to adopt in its proposal reaches beyond the scope of the Agency’s legal authority under the Clean Air Act (CAA). This special issue of the Climate Change Report is devoted to EPA’s proposed ESPS and its potential consequences for the energy industry.