New EPA Rules Stack ‘Uneconomic’ Costs On Coal-Fired Power Plants: GOP Critics

The Biden administration’s directive demanding coal/gas-fired electricity plants cut carbon dioxide emissions 90 percent by 2039 is a likely death knell for about 200 power utilities nationwide, industry officials have warned since the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) included it in a four-rule regulatory package posted on April 25. Among those imperiled: NorthWestern Energy’s 40-year-old generating plants in Colstrip, Montana, which provide power to two-thirds of the state’s homes and businesses and customers in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Yellowstone National Park. The investor-owned utility just spent more than $560 million to meet newly imposed regulatory requirements. It will need to spend at least $600 million more to meet the new emission standards, it maintains, making compliance with the do-or-die rule “uneconomic.”...