As the deadline for comment on the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan approaches, more and more states are seeking input from stakeholders. In drafting their comments, the state utility commissions and air regulator offices have taken different approaches: some are holding formal public hearings, some are accepting public comments, and some are conducting private or invitation-only stakeholder meetings. AEE is tracking the comment drafting process in our 23 partner states, plus Texas and Florida. We have already submitted comments with our partners in Arkansas, Ohio, and Virginia, and we submitted our own set of comments in Florida.
In Texas, stakeholders began holding invitation-only meetings attended by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Texas Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Texas utilities and power producers. Donna Nelson, Chair of the PUC, publicly questioned the future of Texas’ deregulated energy market. “There’s almost nothing in this rule that there could be any other outcome other than the junking of the competitive market,” she said. The CEO of Luminant, Texas’ biggest retail power generator, Mac MacFarland said that the proposed rule “not only overestimates the feasible efficiencies at existing power plants, but also the called-for steep increase in renewable energy sources. The plan disproportionately impacts Texas, and, in our opinion, it oversteps the law.”