EPA Admits Greenhouse Gas Rule Will Do Little to Curb Emissions

EPA’s proposed greenhouse gas emission regulation on new power plants will have a “negligible” environmental effect according to the agency’s own analysis.
Case Western Reserve Law School professor Jonathan Adler found this paragraph tucked away in EPA’s Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) [emphasis mine]:

The EPA anticipates that the proposed EGU New Source GHG Standards will result in negligible CO2 emission changes, energy impacts, quantified benefits, costs, and economic impacts by 2022. Accordingly, the EPA also does not anticipate this rule will have any impacts on the price of electricity, employment or labor markets, or the US economy.

Yet EPA administrator Gina McCarthy touts this rule as an “important step” to fight “carbon pollution.”
If this proposed regulation will have little effect, why press for it? The answer is because it will improve the prospects of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) technology, according to EPA.
Wait, didn’t EPA administrator McCarthy tell the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week that CCS is already “feasible.” She has more confidence in the technology than her agency. The RIA states that because “CCS technologies have had limited application to date,” the proposed regulation would “incentivize innovation” leading to performance improvement and cost reductions...more