The Clean Power Plan’s implementation could cost about $150 billion per year.
On Aug. 3, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the Clean Power Plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants, the implementation of which comes at a serious cost.
Kyle Jackson, NFIB’s Georgia state director, wrote recently in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the rule amounts to a massive tax on the price of electricity as power companies will shift the cost of complying with this rule on to consumers. According to Energy Information Agency data analyzed by the Heritage Foundation, the Clean Power Plan’s implementation will cost about $150 billion per year, or $1,700 per year for a family of four.
In addition to family households, small businesses would see significant increases in their energy costs, which would drive up prices and leave consumers with even less money in the budget.
Job losses are also a likely byproduct of this new financial burden, to the tune of half a million a year by the late 2020s, according to EIA data. At this point, it isn’t clear how many of these job losses would stem from small businesses because the EPA didn’t consider how the regulation would impact small employers and ignored NFIB’s comments.
Finally, the full regulation text is nearly 1,600 pages, which industry and regulatory officials are still working through. There may be further details buried in the rules that cause even more problems for Georgia families and businesses.
The rule hasn’t yet gone into effect and in August, 15 states asked the EPA to put the plan on hold, pending an expected legal challenge. The U.S. House has also passed legislation that would let states opt-out of this rule if they find electricity costs would increase significantly, and there is companion legislation in the Senate that has been introduced but hasn’t yet gotten a vote.
