The President Issues His Climate Action Plan: Not Much Mention Of Congress

President Obama yesterday released his Climate Action Plan, together with a Memorandum concerning EPA's issuance of rules governing carbon emissions from new and existing power plants under the Clean Air Act.  At a certain level, there is not much new here.  The mere existence of the Plan and the commitment to address climate issues is presumably the point.

The Plan does not provide many specifics.  The Memorandum does provide specifics regarding the issuance of new source performance standards.  EPA is directed to issue a new proposal by September 20, 2013.  That's not a lot of time, so EPA must have a pretty good idea at this point what it intends to propose.  The real question is whether EPA will revisit the 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour emissions limit that it proposed in 2012.  There is general agreement that a coal plant cannot meet that standard unless/until carbon capture and storage technology is feasible.  I don't know the answer to that