To combat the compounding pollution problem in the United States, President Obama has proposed a new plan to fight climate change--to lessen pollution by decreasing those who are generating too much toxins like power plants.
This new plan--which is primarily aimed at reducing pollution from coal-fired power plants--will have individual approaches. Instead of using a uniform standard for reducing the carbon emissions, each state in the country will be able to pick form various policy options.
"I've never seen anything like this, where states get this much flexibility. It's astounding," electricity expert Dallas Burtraw told the New York Times. "The E.P.A. is signaling maximal deference to the states."
Charles Driscol, director of the Center for Environmental Systems Engineering at Syracuse, approved of the plan, saying that people just do not realize there are significant additional benefits from cutting carbon emissions. He added that there can be large savings when it comes to reducing threats to public health.
Many coal-state lawmakers and people from the coal industry have, however, criticized the plan, even calling it as a killer of jobs which might raise costs for a lot of people.
The Environmental Protection Agency said that by 2030, they would cut the power plants' greenhouse gas emissions by 30% from 2005 levels. This has baffled some environmentalists, who said that the using the 2005 baseline is more in agreement with what power plants demanded, than what environment groups have asked for.
Carbon emissions in the country have fallen since 2005, reported the National Journal. This decline has made environmentalists lobby for cuts relative to a more recent baselines year, when emissions were lower than in 2005.
According to Frank O' Donnell, this is sounding like more of a riddle--"When is 30 percent not really 30 percent? When it's 30 percent of an inflated baseline," he said.
In response, President Obama has promised that he will implement this Global-Warming rule for the better, adding that it is a"a sensible, state-based plan."
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