WASHINGTON (August 08, 2023) — The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) today filed comments in response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed rules to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from new natural gas power plants and from existing coal- and natural gas-based power plants. EEI President and CEO Tom Kuhn issued the following statement:

“While some have been chasing headlines over the past week, EEI and our member electric companies have been doing the hard work of finalizing recommendations to help EPA move forward with 111 rules that are legally durable and allow us to continue our work to get the energy we provide as clean as we can as fast as we can, reliably and at a price that is affordable for customers.

“As we make clear in our comments, EEI and our member companies support regulations for GHG emissions. In fact, we participated in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court last year in defense of EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate these emissions. We appreciate EPA’s willingness to engage constructively with us over the past several years as the agency worked to develop the proposed 111 rules, and we share EPA’s long-term clean energy vision for our sector.

“Despite the disingenuous narrative that is being pushed about our members’ clean energy and climate leadership, the facts speak for themselves:

• More than 40 percent of the electricity that powers our homes and businesses today comes from clean, carbon-free resources.
• Thanks largely to the clean energy leadership of EEI’s member companies, carbon emissions from the U.S. electric power sector were 36 percent below 2005 levels at the end of 2022—our carbon emissions today are as low as they were almost 40 years ago, while electricity use has climbed 73 percent since then.
• More than 60 percent of the new electricity generation capacity added over the past decade was wind and solar. Looking just at new additions since 2020, that number is 78 percent.
• Already, 50 EEI member companies have announced voluntary, long-term carbon reduction goals, the vast majority of which include net-zero or equivalent goals.

“EEI’s member companies have achieved this progress, and continue to make progress, not because they are forced to by federal regulation, but instead because they are committed to delivering resilient clean energy to their customers.

“While our comments identify technical concerns with specific elements of EPA’s proposal, we offer detailed solutions to address them. Our goal remains to help EPA develop final rules that provide maximum flexibility and durable regulatory frameworks that allow electric companies to continue to provide their customers with the resilient clean energy they need and deserve, reliably and affordably. 

“We look forward to having continued productive discussions with the agency as it works to finalize these regulations.” 

To find our latest clean energy facts and to learn more about our industry’s clean energy leadership, visit www.eei.org/cleanenergy.