The U. S. House Science Committee is holding a hearing today on EPA’s carbon rule for power plants released last month. The hearing is focused on state perspectives on the rule, in particular power plant shutdowns.
Bryan Shaw, chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Craig Butler, director of the Ohio EPA are the GOP witnesses at the hearing. TCEQ has publicly criticized the proposed rule, and Texas has announced plans to sue once the final rule is published next month.
Ohio was part of the early legal challenge (see above) that the courts rejected. Butler said he will develop a state plan, but he has been critical of the rule’s favoring renewables over gas. The Democratic witness is Jason Eisdorfer, the utility program director for the Oregon Public Utility Commission. Oregon gets most of its electricity from hydropower, and is one of the states projected to exceed its CO2 reduction goals by 2020 with or without the rule.