Will Technology, EPA Rules Clash?
By Cathy Cash | ECT Staff Writer Published: December 2nd, 2013
Pending federal standards on carbon dioxide for new coal plants could pose problems for enhanced oil recovery.
Rep. Ed Whitfield questions how carbon capture technology can be “adequately demonstrated” under the law. (Photo By: Cathy Cash)
Carbon dioxide has facilitated enhanced oil recovery for years, and the Environmental Protection Agency touts this as a side benefit of requiring carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) for future coal generation under its proposed rule.
Yet the standards would force new onerous storage and reporting requirements on the use of CCS for enhanced oil recovery, said Kirk Johnson, NRECA senior vice president of government relations. Compliance would be fraught with regulatory uncertainty and risk.
“Contrary to EPA’s expectations, the rule as proposed will discourage the use of CO2 captured by emissions sources in enhanced oil recovery operations,” Johnson said.
Further, operational changes by those recovering oil could trigger revisions of greenhouse gas “monitoring, reporting and verification” plans required by EPA, and jeopardize a power plant’s compliance with the carbon dioxide standard.
“This could force the shutdown of the generation plant,” Johnson said.
EPA’s carbon dioxide standards for new coal-based electricity also appear to conflict with existing energy law, according to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, R-Ky.
In a Nov. 15 letter to EPA, the lawmakers said the agency’s proposed standards are “beyond the scope of its legal authority, and we respectfully request the agency withdraw the proposed rule.”
The lawmakers said that the Energy Policy Act of 2005 prohibits technologies that receive federal funding from being regulated under the provision of the Clean Air Act that EPA is employing to reduce carbon dioxide from coal plants.
The 2005 energy law deemed technology receiving government assistance as not “adequately demonstrated” and excluded such technologies from regulation under that portion of the Clean Air Act.
Janet McCabe, EPA acting assistant administrator, told Whitfield’s subcommittee Nov. 14 that three federally supported CCS projects in Mississippi, Texas and California have been “adequately demonstrated.”
EPA’s proposed carbon dioxide standard for new coal plants has yet to appear in the Federal Register. Once published, the rule is open to public comment for 60 days. The White House has directed EPA to propose a carbon standard for existing coal-based generation in June 2014.
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