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New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change.
The power plant rule “completes a historic grand slam” of major actions by the Biden administration to reduce carbon pollution, said David Doniger, a climate and clean energy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The nation still faces challenges in eliminating carbon from transportation, heavy industry and more, said Abigail Dillen, president of the environmental group Earthjustice, “but we can’t make progress on any of it without cleaning up the power plants.’'
Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, called the EPA rule “unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable,” adding that it faced a certain court challenge.
EPA issued rules in 2015 to regulate active and new ponds at operating facilities, seven years after a disaster in Kingston, Tennessee that flooded two rivers with toxic waste and destroyed property.
“For the first time, we have seen a comprehensive set of standards that protects the surrounding waterways from the extremely nasty water pollution that comes off these coal-fired sites,” said Frank Holleman, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
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