Coal regs hit state where it hurts

New carbon emission regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency may seem to be on Montana’s periphery because there are no plans for new coal-fired plants here, but the regulations certainly are relevant to the state.

Chuck Denowh, spokesman for Count on Coal Montana, recently summed it up succinctly: “This means we’re not going to build any new coal plants in this country. For a state like Montana that has more coal in the ground than anyone else, that’s bad news.”

That’s exactly right. For years now, efforts have been underway to develop the state’s Otter Creek coal tracts in southeastern Montana as a source of significant wealth for the state’s school trust fund. The new regulations by themselves aren’t delaying the state from tapping those coal resources, but they certainly are yet another significant impediment to prevent that from happening. All things that make building a coal plant anywhere prohibitively expensive will have a discouraging effect on Montana’s coal industry.

Ironically, Montana adopted regulations in 2007 that require new plants in the state to capture at least 50 percent of carbon emissions, while the new federal rules require a 40 percent reduction. But that doesn’t really matter, because the federal rules apply across the country, requiring carbon capture technology that is not commercially ready, meaning that the costs of the technology can’t be estimated. The bottom-line is that the new rules are prohibitive to replacing or expanding coal energy anywhere in the land.

Added to this mix, of course, is the expanded use of even more affordable natural gas, a market force that has further negative impacts on the coal industry, which again, is important to the state of Montana.

What’s particularly maddening about the new federal regulations, however, is not just that the EPA did not consider the cost of imposing them, but that the benefits are questionable at best.

The whole purpose of regarding and regulating carbon as a “pollutant” is to battle global warming, a pursuit where there is hardly consensus and plenty of justified skepticism, despite the dismissive claims of climate alarmists.

But even considering their claims, the U.S. produces only 15 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, and power plants are responsible for about 33 percent of that 15 percent. The rest of the world is riding high on affordable coal energy using high pollution plants. So, the EPA is strangling a domestic industry and jobs with broader economic effects... for what?

It is desirable and worthy to diligently pursue cleaner coal technology, and encourage expanded use of that technology around the world, but costs and economic impacts should always be part of the equation.

Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.