Hurdles may foil EPA rules rollback
PNM exec says market realities, opposition to mute proposals’ impact
President Donald Trump’s Cabinet will confront major hurdles in rolling back federal environmental regulations as political opposition, market realities and state policies potentially mute the impact of many proposed changes, PNM Resources Chair, President and CEO Pat VincentCollawn said Wednesday.
Speculation about rescinding the 44-yearold Clean Air Act, for example, is unrealistic, she told the Albuquerque Economic Forum. That would almost certainly be dead on arrival in Congress, because the policy, in force since 1963, has been upheld and strengthened under Republican and Democratic presidents.
“The speculation is that the act is toast, but that’s not likely,” Vincent-Collawn said. “It would be difficult, if not impossible, because you need Congress to do it, including a 60-vote majority in the Senate.”
Trump’s campaign promises and Cabinet picks since taking office have fueled broad debate over new policies that could spur a resurgence of fossil fuels such as coal, while stunting efforts to halt pollution from power plants. In particular, the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt, has generated controversy because of his past questions about the science of climate change and his repeated court challenges to EPA regulations while he was Oklahoma’s attorney general.
Vincent-Collawn discussed many of those concerns in her remarks, which focused on the uncertainty facing the energy industry.
“It can be challenging in stable times, but it’s even more difficult when the climate is unpredictable, as it is now in the transition to a new administration,” she said. “President Trump said he would roll back policies, and that’s already started. With Scott Pruitt at the EPA, I think that rollback will now accelerate.”
But many potential policy changes would have varying impacts in different states, such as any effort to rescind the EPA’s regional haze rule, enforced under former President Barack Obama. That rule led to Public Service Company of New Mexico’s agreement to shut down two of the four units at the coal-fired San Juan Generating Station near Farmington.
Repealing the policy could affect power plants in states such as Texas and Oklahoma, which have yet to reach agreements on meeting haze regulations. But PNM’s plan for San Juan is
already in place.
“Even if they change the rule, it won’t change our plans at San Juan,” Vincent Collawn said.
The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, which calls for limiting carbon emissions from power plants, is likely dead under Trump, Vincent-Collawn said. The plan is tied up in the courts, and because it’s not yet become law, it’s an easier target for a Trump rollback.
That could reduce pressure to shut down the two remaining San Juan units when the plant’s co-ownership agreement and coal contract expire in 2022. But market realities will determine the future of coal, Vincent-Collawn said.
“Despite the rhetoric about reducing regulations, reviving the coal industry is unlikely,” she said. “It’s not regulations pushing coal’s decline, it’s the market. Low natural gas prices are driving it.”