by Michael Bastasch The Trump administration proposed rolling back Obama-era regulation that opponents called a de facto ban on building new coal-fired power plants. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will raise carbon dioxide emissions limits for new coal-fired power plants and eliminate the Obama administration’s mandate that new facilities install carbon capture and storage equipment. “Consistent with President Trump’s executive order promoting energy independence, EPA’s proposal would rescind excessive burdens on America’s energy providers and level the playing field so that new energy technologies can be a part of America’s future,” EPA acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement. EPA’s plan to modify New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) for power plants is part of the Trump administration efforts to unwind the Clean Power Plan — the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s global warming agenda. The Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Power Plan forced states to cut CO2 emissions at existing coal plants and made it extremely difficult to build new ones by mandating they install carbon capture and storage (CCS) equipment. What the Obama EPA did was consider CCS the “best system of emission reduction” for new coal plants, despite criticism from power plant operators, unions and Republicans that…
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