Background
On June 25, 2013, President Obama issued a Presidential Directive, called the Climate Action Plan, that included a Presidential Memorandum directing the EPA to issue rules on carbon emission limits. Just short of a year later on June 2, 2014, the EPA released a proposed rule to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants, called the Clean Power Plan. The proposed rule outlines specific emission reduction targets required for each state. For Missouri, the rule as proposed would require a twenty-three percent reduction of carbon emissions by 2030 below 2005 levels. In July 2014, Missouri Coalition for the Environment issued an official statement and a press release in support of the rule following its release. Missouri voters have also expressed their support in a strong Clean Power Plan, as indicated by a survey conducted in Fall 2014. View MCE’s press release on this survey here.
After the release of the proposed Clean Power Plan, the EPA opened up a public comment period, for individuals and stakeholders to submit general comments in response to the drafted language. The EPA received over eight million comments before the comment period closed on December 1, 2015, the largest number of comments the EPA has ever received on a single proposed rule! After the gathering the public comments in December, the EPA has worked to revise the language of the proposed rule based on the comments provided and a final Clean Power Plan rule is expected to be released in late summer. The chart below illustrates the entire rulemaking and implementation process, from the President’s Presidential Directive down to Missouri and how the Missouri Department of Natural Resources will implement the requirements outlined in the Clean Power Plan. Click HERE for an enlarged image shown below.
