Business Leaders Support EPA’s Clean Power Plan

WASHINGTON — A coalition of business leaders has voiced support of the federal Clean Power Plan.

Released in June 2014, the plan targets a reduction in national electricity sector emissions to an estimated 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a framework that will help states meet this target.

Business leaders have formed a nonpartisan group in 2000 called Environmental Entrepreneurs, or E2. More than 300 E2 participants from across the country signed on to E2’s comments to the EPA. These participants represent dozens of different states and economic sectors such as banking, energy, real estate and technology. These business leaders agree that strong implementation of the Clean Power Plan will create new business opportunities, expand markets and add thousands of new jobs.

E2 noted the plan will result in increased deployment of renewable energy and more investments in energy efficiency, two of the most cost-effective ways to counter climate change’s rising costs while creating good jobs for American workers. E2 also noted that the EPA can – and should – do even more.

“What this plan means is more jobs and less carbon pollution. But the EPA can make a good plan even better,” said Bob Keefe, E2 executive director, in a statement.

Specifically, E2 calls upon the EPA to:

• Reconsider several modeling assumptions. Wind and solar costs have each declined about 40 percent in recent years. EPA should take this into account and update its cost and performance assumptions for renewable energy and energy efficiency. EPA should also more accurately account for the value and potential of emission reductions via energy efficiency, taking cues from successful programs in states like Massachusetts and California. EPA should also include distributed generation as a major source of renewable energy capacity, since net-metered capacity now makes up about half of total U.S. solar PV capacity.

• Include a broader range of efficiency programs. The Clean Power Plan could become more flexible while increasing savings from energy efficiency if it includes programs and activities like: improvements in the transmission and distribution system; state building and appliance standards; and savings delivered by energy service companies that do not get utility and state funding.

• Update the state target formula. Every megawatt of renewable energy added to the grid or saved via energy efficiency should count as a direct offset to fossil-based emissions. Altering the formula improves emissions reductions and creates more incentives for investments in sustainable energy technologies.