EPA chief: Don’t believe hype about states resisting climate rules

Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy said there is a “different” discussion going on behind closed doors about the administration’s proposed carbon pollution rules than the one being broadcast.

It’s much more of a “roll up the sleeves” discussion between states and the EPA, she said. That even includes states opposed to the rule and are involved in lawsuits against it, McCarthy said.

{mosads}”The public discussion may be a little bit different than the roll up the sleeves discussion that we are actually having on a technical basis around these rules,” McCarthy told reporters on Friday at EPA headquarters. 

“And I’m really anticipating that those discussions will continue and that you will have many states see that the standards that we set were reasonable,” she said.

McCarthy pushed back at legal doubts surrounding the regulation, a pillar of President Obama’s climate agenda, saying the “foundation” the EPA is acting on to regulate pollution is “solid.”

Right now, the EPA is not just trying to keep states at the table, McCarthy said, but really get them to dig deep, and “roll up their sleeves.”

“One of the great things about the way in which this rule is proposed is it has started a dialogue between energy and environmental leadership in states that has really not happened before because it is really going to be overall [a] state decision on how to meet this,” McCarthy said. 

“I think the states know that we are within the Clean Air Act. The best thing they can do is to design their own plans and really create their own path forward that is in line with where they want to go economically and energy wise,” she added.

When asked if the EPA is worried that states like Texas and West Virginia, whose governors have spoken out against the rule, will refuse to implement plans to cut carbon dioxide, McCarthy said no.

And if governments change in a given state, and new leaders want to do away with the rules, McCarthy said they are going to have trouble because it would take a lengthy process to repeal designs put into place.

“Once the plans come in and they’re approved, then those are the plans, and it takes a specific agency action to allow that plan to be changed,” she said. “We pretty much think when the plans are done we will have a path forward that will not be susceptible to easily changing and certainly not without EPA approval.”

Twelve states are currently suing the EPA over the rules, which mandate the nation’s fleet of existing power plants reduce carbon pollution 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels. 

The states called EPA’s proposal an “extraordinary” exertion of its authority in a legal brief. 

Opponents particularly take issue with the section of the proposal that allows states to regulate “beyond the fence” of power plants and find ways to cut emissions through different avenues.

McCarthy said she is aware of the concerns, and the EPA is listening, but added that those same states who aren’t happy with the rule know they should move to design plans for cutting pollution to be safe.

“I’m not naive in thinking we are going to get 100 percent of the states completely convinced that developing a plan is in their best interest but I think all of the states recognize that if we are correct and this is legally solid — which it will be, and we’re reasonable in what we do — that the better thing is for them to do their own plans, and I think they know that,” she said.