This briefing contains an overview of the corporate lobbying detected by InfluenceMap related to fossil fuels for the month of December 2023.
United States: Utilities and their industry associations, including Edison Electric Institute, reiterated their opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s power plant rules in the December 2023 supplemental comment period. The negative advocacy aimed at undermining the ambition of the proposal by calling for greater flexibility to preserve reliability.
Strong oppositional engagement by investor-owned utilities (IOUs) and their industry groups is endangering the ambition of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s proposed power plant rules, according to InfluenceMap analysis of engagement during the agency’s supplemental comment period in December 2023. InfluenceMap continues to track lobbying on these rules, beginning from the pre-proposal announced in September 2022, on this page within the US policy platform.
This briefing contains an overview of the corporate advocacy detected by InfluenceMap related to fossil fuels and climate for the month of November 2023.
This persistent opposition by many of the country’s largest utilities puts the rules at serious risk of being weakened. As proposed, the rules provide a variety of pathways to achieve greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions for certain fossil fuel-fired power plants, including the use of carbon capture and hydrogen with a carbon intensity of less than 0.45 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of hydrogen. The proposal currently exempts smaller gas plants from compliance and introduces standards on a staggered basis, beginning in the 2030s.
The fossil fuel industry’s arguments against the proposal during the first comment period, which closed in August 2023 (please see September 2023 newsletter for details), characterized it to various degrees as unlawful, technologically infeasible, and a threat to grid reliability. In November 2023, the EPA appeared to respond to this last concern by announcing a 30-day supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking to investigate “potential reliability issues raised by small business and other commenters.” The purpose of this supplemental comment period was to receive input on whether the proposal required additional measures to mitigate difficulties that small businesses may face with compliance. The agency requested comments specifically from small businesses while recognizing that it would consider all comments given “broader considerations of reliability.”
Despite the EPA’s request for responses to be mainly from small businesses, many of the large utilities that responded to the original comment period submitted feedback again. In a response that echoed the sector’s initial pushback, these utilities reiterated their positions that the draft proposal was too stringent and called for greater flexibility measures in the name of reliability. A detailed analysis of the spectrum of lobbying on the proposal is available on this page within InfluenceMap’s US policy platform, and patterns of utility engagement are described below.
Main utility group calls for compliance flexibilities: Edison Electric Institute (EEI) submitted negative comments that called for greater flexibility in the rules, including extended timelines and higher emissions thresholds. In addition, the group urged the agency to re-propose its draft rules around existing gas plants, which would both delay and weaken emissions reductions for existing gas-fired power plants. The group appeared to repeat its August 2023 oppositional comments by emphasizing technological feasibility concerns with the carbon capture and hydrogen compliance pathways and suggesting that the rules should facilitate a prominent role for fossil gas in the energy transition.
Oppositional utilities reiterate negative positions: Many utilities, which had taken strong negative positions in previous comment periods, submitted comments that advocated to weaken the proposal, including Duke Energy, Southern Company, and PPL Corp. The Class of ‘85 Regulatory Response Group – whose signatories included AES, Alliant, Ameren, Dominion, Duke Energy, Entergy, Evergy, PPL Corp, and NRG Energy – submitted comments advocating for less stringent timelines and compliance pathways that allow “renewable fuels” and hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. Ameren and Dominion Energy, respectively, called for the EPA to withdraw the proposal completely and to re-issue a separate rulemaking for large, existing gas plants. Industry groups that include utilities in their membership also submitted negative comments, including a joint letter signed by the US Chamber of Commerce that characterized the proposal as “unlawful” and called for its withdrawal.
Constellation Energy takes a more positive stance while advocating for short-term flexibility: In a departure from much of the power sector’s oppositional language, Constellation submitted comments stating that the EPA’s proposal “provides sufficient flexibility to meet reliability needs.” The power company took a mixed position by calling for the use of short-term compliance exemptions as a way to address reliability constraints while stressing that these should be limited to ensure that “the exception does not swallow the rule.”
According to the Biden Administration’s latest Unified Agenda, the rules are expected to be finalized by April 2024. Given the fossil fuel industry’s resistance, the proposal is under threat of being significantly weakened. Engagement on this policy in the next few months may be critical to its final ambition and highlights the need for stronger positive corporate advocacy to counter the heavy opposition.
