Starvin Larry

Guest essay by James Sawhill

The EPA’s attempt to harness new coal-fired power plant constructions has been exposed as ideological rather than legal. The EPA further ignored the Department of Energy’s (DOE) earlier conclusion that carbon capture and storage (CCS) has not been “adequately demonstrated.” [1]

Thanks to commentary from The Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) the EPA has been forced to retreat from their draft rule. That rule would mandate the use of CCS, a process that would inter carbon dioxide underground which has so far proved to be little more than a thought experiment. To mandate this technology, the court required the EPA to prove CCS was “adequately demonstrated” and “commercially available.” In that they were laid naked by E&E Legal.

We submitted comments for the record explaining that EPA had made a mockery of the interagency review process, ignoring the government’s own experts in order…