WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) called on EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to provide a 60-day extension for the public comment period on EPA’s radical plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The EPA plan will drive up the price of electricity, send jobs overseas, and lead to the construction of foreign factories in places like China, which will emit far more carbon dioxide and pollution into the global atmosphere. The EPA plan contains very complicated mandates, which target Arkansas with some of the most painful and severe cuts in the nation.  

Boozman joined 52 of his senate colleagues expressing that because the proposal is incredibly complex and broad in scope and would impact electric generation, use, and costs throughout the country, an additional 60 days is needed to provide more time for all stakeholders to fully review it and offer comments. 

In May, Boozman signed a letter to EPA requesting that the agency grant at least 120 days for public comment on its new proposal for existing power plants. The agency approved this request, but analyzing and assessing the information has proven very difficult for stakeholders in Arkansas and across the country. 

In this letter, the senators state that the level of complexity of the proposal, volume of technical documents released, amount of coordination required, and magnitude of energy impacts of the rule warrant a 60-day extension of the public comment period. 

The senators write, “This extension is critical to ensure that state regulatory agencies and other stakeholders have adequate time to fully analyze and comment on the proposal. It is also important to note that the challenge is not only one of commenting on the complexity and sweeping scope of the rule, but also providing an opportunity to digest more than 600 supporting documents released by EPA in support of this proposal.” 

Full text of the senators’ letter is below.

Dear Administrator McCarthy, 

We are writing to request that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provide a 60 day extension of the comment period for the “Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources:  Electric Generating Units.”  While we appreciate EPA granting an initial 120 day comment period, the complexity and magnitude of the proposed rule necessitates an extension. This extension is critical to ensure that state regulatory agencies and other stakeholders have adequate time to fully analyze and comment on the proposal. It is also important to note that the challenge is not only one of commenting on the complexity and sweeping scope of the rule, but also providing an opportunity to digest more than 600 supporting documents released by EPA in support of this proposal. 

The proposed rule regulates or affects the generation, transmission, and use of electricity in every corner of this country.  States and stakeholders must have time to fully analyze and assess the sweeping impacts that the proposal will have on our nation’s energy system, including dispatch of generation and end-use energy efficiency. In light of the broad energy impacts of the proposed rule, state environmental agencies must coordinate their comments across multiple state agencies and stakeholders, including public utility commissions, regional transmission organizations, and transmission and reliability experts, just to name a few.   The proposed rule requires a thorough evaluation of intra- and inter-state, regional, and in some cases international energy generation and transmission so that states and utilities can provide the most detailed assessments on how to meet the targets while maintaining reliability in the grid.This level of coordination to comment on an EPA rule is unprecedented, extraordinary, and extremely time consuming. 

It is also important to note that the proposed rule imposes a heavy burden on the states during the rulemaking process.  If the states want to adjust their statewide emission rate target assigned to them by EPA, they must provide their supporting documentation for the adjustment during the comment period.  The EPA proposal provides no mechanism for adjusting the state emission rate targets once they are adopted based on the four building blocks.  So the states need enough time to digest the rule, fully understand it, and then collect the data and justification on why their specific target may need to be adjusted, and why the assumptions of the building blocks may not apply to their states.  This cannot be adequately accomplished in only 120 days. 

Thank you for your consideration of this request.

A pdf copy of the letter is attached below.