10-R042

2010 -- H 7223

Enacted 01/26/10

 

 

H O U S E R E S O L U T I O N

RESPECTFULLY REQUESTING THE UNITED STATES SENATE TO HOLD DIRTY COAL PLANTS ACCOUNTABLE IN THE SENATE ENERGY AND CLIMATE BILL

     

     

     Introduced By: Representatives Kilmartin, Pacheco, M Rice, Gallison, and Walsh

     Date Introduced: January 26, 2010

 

 

     WHEREAS, Old, clunker coal plants must be required to meet smokestack-specific

standards; and

     WHEREAS, For the same reasons we require cars, air conditioners, and light bulbs to

meet technology standards, we must also set standards for coal plants, the nation’s single largest

source of global warming pollution; and

     WHEREAS, If we are to transition smoothly to a clean energy economy and solve global

warming, coal plants – old and new alike – must not be permitted to keep running on inefficient,

decades-old technology; and

     WHEREAS, The pollution cap will not be enough by itself to significantly cut pollution

from coal plants in the next decade; and

     WHEREAS, The cap alone is not sufficient because, consistent with the U.S. House-

passed bill and legislation under development in the U.S. Senate, (1) the emissions ceiling likely

will decline relatively slowly for the first decade of the program; (2) companies likely will

receive free pollution allowances to cover most of their emissions; and (3) companies will be able

to avoid reducing pollution at their plants by purchasing offsets generated by projects in the

United States and abroad. Indeed, EPA’s analysis of the House-passed energy bill (which repeals

New Source Review and New Source Performance Standards for carbon dioxide from existing

coal plants) projects that only 6.9 percent of existing coal generation capacity will be retired by

2025, with most of the retired capacity occurring at “marginal units with low capacity” that are

part of larger plants that are expected to continue generating”; and

     WHEREAS, Singling out existing stationary sources from complying with emissions and

efficiency standards will give them a massive, unfair leg-up, tipping the market against clean

sources like wind and solar; and

     WHEREAS, The U.S. Department of Energy projects that electricity demand will be

relatively flat over the next twenty years (an annual average growth rate of less than one percent),

even before considering the multitude of efficiency gains that would be achieved by the House-

passed energy bill and other policies; and

     WHEREAS, If electricity demand is flat and old coal plants don’t begin to retire, there

will be a much smaller market for renewables. Indeed, the EPA’s analysis of the House-passed

energy bill projects that coal will continue to provide nearly half of the nation’s electricity

through at least 2025; and

     WHEREAS, Companies will be perversely encouraged to keep operating – and even

expand the operation of their oldest and dirtiest coal plants if they are exempted from modern

pollution standards; and

     WHEREAS, Under the House-passed energy bill, new plants would, in a few years, have

to meet fairly stringent global warming limits, but old plants would not have to meet any

smokestack-specific standards, even if they are expanded in ways that drive up pollution. This

loophole invites the industry to ramp up their use of old, dirty coal plants instead of retrofitting

them to reduce pollution or retiring the oldest dinosaurs to make way for renewable energy; and

     WHEREAS, Moving to clean energy means leaving old, inefficient, and dirty technology

behind; and

     WHEREAS, Just as emissions standards for automobiles help ensure that the dirtiest

clunkers on the highway are replaced with newer models, so would effective global warming

pollution standards help ensure that clunker coal plants, many of them forty to fifty years old,

don’t keep operating indefinitely; and

     WHEREAS, Coal plants impose major costs on the environment and public health. The

National Academy of Sciences has found that these ancient coal plants cost the U.S. economy

tens of billions of dollars a year in public health damages. And in the meantime, countries like

China speed ahead in the global renewable energy race; and

     WHEREAS, Standards for clunker coal plants will require investment in America’s aging

infrastructure that will create clean energy jobs. By requiring that outdated coal plants install

modern technology to reduce global warming pollution, we will unleash innovation and put

America’s workforce back in business; and

     WHEREAS, We cannot stop the worst effects of global warming unless we start cutting

pollution from coal plants now; and

     WHEREAS, A recent report on “The Future of Coal” by the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology makes clear that there is “no credible pathway toward GHG stabilization targets

without emissions reductions from existing coal plants.” Steady reductions in pollution from coal

plants are necessary to achieve the deep cuts in pollution that science already shows is necessary

by 2030 and later; now, therefore be it

     RESOLVED, That this House of Representatives of the State of Rhode Island and

Providence Plantations hereby respectfully urges Senate Majority Leader Reid, Senator Jack

Reed, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to ensure that the Senate energy and climate bill

preserves the Clean Air Act requirements that coal plants meet global warming pollution

standards in order to fight global warming and repower America with clean energy; and be it

further

     RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and he hereby is authorized and directed to

transmit a duly certified copy of this resolution to The Honorable Harry Reid, U.S. Senate

Majority Leader, The Honorable Jack Reed, U.S. Senate, and The Honorable Sheldon

Whitehouse, U.S. Senate.

     

=======

LC00426

=======