America’s Dirtiest Power Plants

The Long Road to Carbon Pollution Limits
The Obama administration’s recent actions indicating progress toward carbon dioxide pollution
from power plants are the culmination of a 14-year campaign to clean up the nation’s power
plants. In 1999, one year after the EPA declined to include carbon dioxide pollution limits in new
vehicle emissions standards, 19 environmental and public interest groups petitioned the EPA to
classify carbon dioxide as an air pollutant subject to the Clean Air Act regulation. 83 They cited carbon
dioxide’s contribution to global warming – which threatens human health and the environment
– as rationale for regulation. 84
In 2003, the EPA released an official statement that it did not believe the Act authorized the EPA
to regulate global warming pollution, and that even if it did authorize regulating greenhouse
gases, the EPA objected to doing so on policy grounds. 85 However, the U.S. Supreme Court disagreed
with the EPA in 2007, ruling with several states and environmental groups that the EPA
does indeed have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases, and that its policy objections were
insufficient to decline to regulate. 86 The court also directed the EPA to determine if greenhouse
gases contribute to global warming and, if so, whether global warming endangered public health
and welfare. 87 By the end of 2009, the EPA officially determined that emissions of carbon dioxide
endanger public health and welfare by contributing to global warming. 88
In December 2010, the EPA announced its plan to release new performance standards and mandatory
emissions guidelines for all new fossil fuel-fired power plants. 89 The EPA proposed an interim
carbon pollution standard for new power plants in April 2012 that is in effect until a rule can be
finalized. 90 This step set the first-ever national limits on the amount of carbon pollution power
plants can emit. 91
Carbon Pollution Standards Are Needed to Clean Up Existing Power Plants 21