EPA Issues Clean Power Plan To Control Power Plant Carbon Emissions

At a White House ceremony on August 3, 2015, President Obama and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") issued the Clean Power Plan ("CPP"), the administration's regulatory plan to reduce carbon dioxide ("CO2") emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants to 68 percent of their 2005 levels by 2030. The latest salvo in the administration's "war on coal" also includes a proposed plan to impose the CPP on states that refuse to adopt it on their own and additional carbon emission standards for new, modified, and reconstructed sources. The CPP is expected to further reduce coal-fired power generation. It will further depress demand for coal and lead to additional economic distress and bankruptcy for companies in the coal mining sector. An open question is whether the government can be called upon for compensation for these losses.