Obama has put a pause on one of the most critical components of his climate change plan which involves new rules on cutting carbon emissions from power plants.
In stark contrast, a leading industry lobby group, Americans for Clean Coal Electricity, stated, “The fact remains that the agency’s proposed regulations are among the costliest our country has ever seen. Considering how fundamentally flawed these regulations are, EPA could save all involved a lot of time, money and economic hardship if it just withdrew its proposal altogether.”
This delay comes just one week before a UN summit is due to take place and where officials are looking to Obama to demonstrate leadership as a result.
This delay was announced by the EPA who also revealed, via a conference call, that the public comment period will extended until December 1, 2014. One reason why this delay has occurred is due to a number of Republican lobby groups that want to review the rule or withdraw it altogether.
In fact, fifteen governors have already called the President and the EPA to withdraw the rule which will require power plants to reduce carbon emissions. A number of electricity plants have said that the rules, covered in 1600 pages, are complex to understand. They also want to study the rules so as to understand its full implications as well.
That said, Janet McCabe, EPA acting assistant administrator, said that this extension will not put the rule under jeopardy since plenty of time is still on their hands.