WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, and U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Ranking Member of the Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, sent a letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Willie L. Phillips and Commissioners James Danly, Allison Clements, and Mark C. Christie.
The Senators urged the Commissioners to work with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to improve the agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan 2.0 and fix the associated threats to electric reliability the plan presents.
“The record developed at the Technical Conference, and the actions taken by the Commission and by EPA after the Technical Conference, clearly show that a majority of Commissioners agreed (and Mr. Joseph Goffman, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation acknowledged) that more work is necessary to determine how EPA’s proposed rule could impair electric reliability,” the senators write.
“We share Commissioner Danly’s hope that EPA will return to the Commission again to discuss how its Proposed Clean Power Plan 2.0 can avoid harming electric reliability. We urge you to remain engaged with EPA and to keep us apprised of progress on these critically important matters. As we pointed out in our letter of November 2, if Commissioners and FERC staff do not bring to bear your expertise and fact-based analysis to dissuade the EPA from continuing on its current course, you will bear at least partial responsibility for any blackouts and brownouts that occur as result of electric resource shortages that would be attributable to compliance with a final rule resembling the Proposed Clean Power Plan 2.0,” the senators also wrote.
This follows a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that Senators Capito and Barrasso sent out earlier. In addition, Senators Barrasso and Capito have sent two other letters to FERC on this topic on June 30 and Nov. 2.