• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote September 20, 2023
Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds September 20, 2023
Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP September 20, 2023
‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak September 19, 2023
‘Turning Point’ for PR Industry as Clean Creatives Targets Fossil Industry Contracts September 19, 2023
Next
Prev

Trump Appointees Fast-Track Bailouts for Coal, Nuclear While Dismissing Carbon Cost

October 3, 2017
Reading time: 3 minutes

Tennessee Valley Authority/Flickr

Tennessee Valley Authority/Flickr

 

The United States’ energy regulator, brought to full strength in August by the Trump administration, is rushing its consideration of subsidies for American coal- and nuclear-powered electricity generation, while ducking a court order that it consider the downstream climate effects of a proposed natural gas pipeline.

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry proposed the subsidy regime last week in a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Perry urged the regulator to give utilities operating so-called ‘baseload’ generation a price bonus if they keep at least 90 days of fuel supply on hand. The proposal, which favours coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric facilities, reflects the former Texas governor’s widely-contradicted premise that the removal of such large central plants from service endangers the stability of electric grids.

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

Now the agency seems determined to put Perry’s wish into law with minimal review. “FERC is asking for initial comments on DOE’s proposed rule to be submitted in just three weeks,” Politico reports, “a timeline that suggests the independent commission is eager to move quickly on the Trump administration’s proposal.” FERC said comments on the new policy would have to be received by October 23, and replies to comments by November 7.

One reason for haste: Perry’s idea “is already generating pushback from a diverse group of major industry players.” Politico notes.

Calling FERC’s deadline “unreasonable”, 11 U.S. trade associations, including the American Petroleum Institute, the American Council On Renewable Energy, the American Wind Energy Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association call its pending decision, “one of the most significant proposed rules in decades” that, if finalized, would affect millions of consumers and hundreds of thousands of businesses.

“Given the importance and complexity of this topic, any comment period should be at least 90 days,” the groups wrote in a motion filed with the commission on Monday. The associations also want FERC to hold a “technical conference” before time runs out on comments, “so that stakeholders would better understand the proposal.”

Meanwhile, FERC has found a way to deflect an appeal court directive issued in August, instructing it to reconsider its approval last year of the Southeast Market Pipelines Project, which would deliver natural gas to Florida. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals instructed the regulator to “properly analyze the climate impact from burning the natural gas that the project would deliver to power plants.”

Last week, FERC issued a supplemental environmental review that conceded that building and operating the pipeline would “result in temporary and permanent impacts on the environment,” but did not alter its approval for the project. FERC concluded, according to Utility Dive, that “with sufficient mitigation measures, ‘operating the SMP Project would not result in a significant impact on the environment.’”

In reaching that conclusion, however, the agency sidestepped one of the most commonly-applied measures of how greenhouse gases released from any source might affect people in its service area (recently struck by Hurricane Irma) and beyond: the social cost of carbon. The measure, necessarily a rough one, estimates the damage to society from the climate change initiated by the release of each additional unit of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent in other greenhouse gases.

Although FERC concluded that several pipeline projects in Florida could increase its greenhouse gas emissions by between 3.7% and 9.7%, it “declined to utilize the social cost of carbon (SCC) calculation devised by the Obama administration, saying no consensus exists for the appropriate discount rate for analyses and there are no established criteria identifying monetized values to consider.” 



in Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

CoCreatr/Flickr
Buildings & Infrastructure

Net-Zero Depends on Household Power Production, Energy Exec Argues

September 14, 2023
132
Pierre Poilievre/Facebook
Energy Politics

Poilievre Could Dial Back Canada’s Climate Gains, Globe Editorial Warns

September 12, 2023
493
Scott Beale/flickr
Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics

What If Carbon Taxes Applied to Shareholders, Rather Than Consumers?

September 11, 2023
121

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 20, 2023
334
/Piqusels

‘Beginning of the End’ for Oil and Gas as IEA Predicts Pre-2030 Peak

September 19, 2023
356
Clean Creatives

‘Turning Point’ for PR Industry as Clean Creatives Targets Fossil Industry Contracts

September 19, 2023
233
William Munoz/Flickr

‘Obituary-Changing’ Revelations Show Exxon’s Tillerson Undermining Climate Science

September 19, 2023
186
HiMY SYeD/flick

Ontario Waits 8 Months to Release Dire Climate Impact Report

September 14, 2023
486
Beckyq6937/Wikimedia Commons

Solar Geoengineering Means ‘Game Over’ for Life on Earth, Critics Warn

September 19, 2023
97

Recent Posts

Rewat Wannasuk/Pexels

Virtual Power Plants Could Cut Peak Demand 20%, Save U.S. Grid $10B Per Year

September 20, 2023
1
Jeremy Bezanger/Unsplash

Indoor Heat Leaves Canadians Unsafe with ‘No Escape’, CBC Investigation Finds

September 20, 2023
1
Wesley Fryer/flickr

Smart Thermostats Boost Grid Stability Amid Intense Heat

September 20, 2023
1
Cullen328/wikimedia commons

Manufactured Housing Could Dent the Affordable Housing Crunch with Energy-Efficient Designs

September 20, 2023
1
Mr Renewables/Wikipedia

Californians Fight for Approval of New Community Solar Plan

September 20, 2023
2
Asurnipal/wikimedia commons

Agrivoltaics a Win-Win for Farmers, Communities, Solar Developers, and Alberta’s UCP

September 20, 2023
1
Next Post
Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Paranoid Pruitt Needs Armed Guards, Private ‘Cone of Silence’ in Office

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}