Proposed Utility MACT

The proposal was published yesterday in the federal register. This EPA site contains a link to the FR proposal.

Here's an article critical of the proposal. It points out that EPA formerly found that only mercury emissions posed a risk that warranted review under Section 112, but the proposal addresses several other toxics. It also talks about the cumulative effect of several proposed rules set to hit coal-fired utilities around 2015.

This article includes a good concise history and explanation of Section 112 of the CAA in general and of the Utility MACT in specific.

This site contains two presumably less biased evaluations of the proposal from the bipartisan policy center.

While this article is not directly related to the proposed MACT, it does provide some very interesting perspective about the prospects of renewable energy sources filling the void as we drive conventional sources out of business. The main thesis is that we don't just need to replace coal/nuclear/natural gas, we need to replace them with sources that are able "to provide just the right amount of controllable power at any specified time to match demand at all times." It also talks about the falicy of being able to regulate ourselves into prosperity ( Henry Hazlitt’s Broken Window fallacy) and about the problem of just using more energy as we improve efficiency (Jevon’s Paradox).