Honorable Says FERC Must Use Its Tools To Help With Pending EPA Rule
by June 15, 2015 4:51 pm 145 views
Environment & Energy Publishing reports that former Arkansas Public Service Commission chairwoman Colette Honorable wants to see her current employer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), play a supportive role in forthcoming EPA rules.
Under the President’s so-called “Clean Power Plan,” the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to put forth regulations that would require states to cut existing power-plant carbon emissions from 2005 levels by 30% by 2030.
E&E Publishing notes:
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should play a “proactive” role in helping states and regions respond to challenges posed by compliance with the forthcoming final version of U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan, Colette Honorable, FERC’s newest member, said in a Friday interview.
While Honorable and her colleagues are on record in support of EPA, including a so-called reliability safety valve in the final rule, she also wants FERC to use its “tools” to “provide certainty and support for this [EPA] planning effort.”
“It might be a technical conference or FERC could direct assessments or studies to be conducted. FERC is going to be needed now more than ever to support the vast work that will have to be undertaken in states, in [organized market] regions and in multi-state groups that are not part of regions.”
Read more at this link.
Talk Business & Politics business editor Wesley Brown interviewed Honorable in late March. At the time, she encouraged states, including Arkansas, to be actively working on a plan. New PSC chairman Ted Thomas gave guidance on the agency’s direction in a recent TB&P interview.
Thomas said he expects the EPA final rules to land between Aug. 1 and Aug. 15. He said once a final EPA rule is issued in 2015 and it has been reviewed, the ADEQ and APSC will restart the meetings with stakeholder groups to develop a state implementation plan that would then be submitted to the EPA for approval.
“We are in holding pattern now until we get final rules,” said Thomas, who was appointed to his post in January. “The process will begin again once we get a final rule. We have discussed it with the governor and there is legislation (Act 382) that essentially mandates that we submit a plan, or decide whether to file a plan or not.”