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EPA regs would jeopardize power supply

The clash between environmental and energy reality versus idealism reached a crossroads in Denver last week when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission convened a technical conference on Wednesday. The meeting concerned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s self-titled “Clean Power Plan,” which would effectively regulate-away the ability of existing power plants to produce the affordable electricity on which countless Coloradans rely to heat and cool their homes and keep the lights on.

While we should be working toward creating win-win outcomes through an all-of-the-above energy solution and responsible environmental safeguards, all the focus so far by the administration and its supporters has been on picking winners and losers, embracing only what the EPA anoints as “clean” energy. FERC finally had a chance to weigh in on “power” – what it takes to reliably operate our increasingly strained electricity delivery system under EPA’s overreaching plan.

In Colorado, we’ve successfully maintained a diverse energy portfolio that has kept rates reasonable overall, provided a stable power supply and a healthy, clean environment. The EPA’s plan, however, would slash coal use an additional 37 percent – a readily-available resource Colorado relies upon for more than 60 percent of our electricity. The EPA promises that boosting renewable generation an additional 36 percent will offset this drastic cut when coupled with forcing Colorado families and businesses, many of which are already struggling to get by on tight budgets, to invest hundreds of billions to substantially reduce their own electricity use. But intermittent renewables like wind and solar cannot substitute for baseload power – the electricity we need day-in, day-out, rain or shine, breezy or not. While phasing out traditional energy resources to the extent the EPA would like will have virtually no effect on global greenhouse gas emissions, it does spell serious trouble for the U.S. power grid.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is confident that her agency’s plan will work. But seeing that electricity can reliably flow to where it’s sorely needed is not her agency’s area of expertise. In fact, the EPA has a woeful record of accurately predicting the impacts of its regulations on the nation’s power grid. That falls under FERC’s purview, but so far, the EPA has crafted its regulatory plan without any meaningful involvement from FERC. That is simply unacceptable because FERC’s purpose is to guarantee we have a reliable supply of electricity.

FERC now must get involved because the EPA chose to go it alone without consideration that its proposed actions would drastically jeopardize our power supply. Congressional inquiry has determined the EPA did not share any meaningful details of its plan with FERC and, more important, didn’t consult FERC about whether or not its regulatory agenda would affect the reliability of our power grid. Many experts agree that the EPA’s lopsided focus threatens reliable operation of an energy delivery system made more brittle by a cascade of EPA regulations that failed to account for their cumulative consequences.

Whether at home or on the factory floor, we summon electricity with the flick of a switch or punch of a power button. Assuring something happens when we do involves thousands of hardworking Coloradans operating a staggeringly complex energy delivery infrastructure that not only includes the wires we see and pipelines we don’t, but power plant switchyards we never think about and dispatch centers few of us even know exist.

This is a world of technology that anticipates our need for electricity an instant before we want it there, balances fluctuations in the availability of resources in the nano-seconds it takes to ramp up an alternative source – then back it off or send it somewhere else the instant the situation changes. The EPA’s short-sighted regulations up-end that system, and system failure disrupts our nation’s lifeblood.

FERC has heard from utilities, independent generators, regulators, system operators and transmission companies – the players upon whose successful interactions we unknowingly depend. The EPA has thus far disregarded their warnings, choosing instead to go it alone. It’s time for FERC to catch up and listen to the experts who work every day to ensure that our lights come on. They must.

Congressman Scott Tipton represents Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District and serves as the vice chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus. Reach him at scott.tipton@mail.house.gov.



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