A lawsuit filed last month by Tampa-based Seminole Electric Cooperative against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) prompts looking at the CPP’s concrete costs and benefits.
Seminole Electric serves 1.4 million customers in 42 mostly rural, poor counties. It joins 24 other states and various businesses suing EPA, alleging that the CPP is, as Seminole Electric put it, “a massive overreach of EPA’s regulatory authority” that would impose massive costs with little benefit.
EPA spokeswoman Enesta Jones insists that the CPP “is grounded firmly in science and the law and is fair, flexible and affordable.”
Science: Is the CPP Based on Accurate Understanding of Climate?
The computer models on which EPA depends project that doubling atmospheric CO2 concentration would raise global average temperature by about 2.7˚ to 8.1˚F, with a “best estimate” of about 5.4˚. Assuming that, EPA calculates that implementing the CPP would lower global average temperature in 2100 by less than a “scientifically undetectable and environmentally insignificant” 0.04˚F.
But when compared with empirical observation, the models fail. On average, they predict twice the warming observed over the relevant period. If their errors were random, they would predict less warming as often as more, but 95% predict more, implying that their errors are not random but driven by bias. And none predicted the complete absence of warming over the 18 years and 8 months through September, according to the satellite temperature observations—the most reliable.
More empirical estimates of warming from doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration run in a range from about 0.5˚ to 5.4˚F with a best estimate of about 3.2˚. Assuming that, the CPP would achieve less than 0.02˚F reduction.
In short, it will have no measurable effect on global average temperature or life on earth.
Law: Is the CPP Constitutional?
Legal challenges to the CPP vary. The best summation is the brief by Harvard Constitutional law professor Laurence H. Tribe. Although he believes “coping with climate change is a vital end,” Tribe says the CPP violates “the rule of law” and calls it an “executive overreach and an administrative agency’s assertion of power beyond its statutory authority” and “an attempt to seize lawmaking power that belongs to Congress” that “violates principles of federalism and seeks to commandeer state governments in violation of the Tenth Amendment.”
Tribe adds that it “raises serious questions under the Fifth Amendment … because it retroactively abrogates the federal government’s policy of promoting coal as an energy source. Private companies—and whole communities—reasonably relied on the federal government’s commitment to the support of coal” when the government sought independence from Middle East oil producers in the 1970s and 1980s.
Economics, Part 1: Is the CPP Affordable?
The economic forecasting firm NERA predicts that electricity rates will rise by about 17 percent if the CPP is implemented. But the true cost will be not only in household electric bills but also in rising prices for all goods and services, reflecting rising electric prices for producers.
The federal Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates that the CPP will reduce GDP every year from now through 2030, with the loss growing from about $3 billion (about $25 per household, assuming 118 million households) in 2016 to a high of about $148 billion (about $1,250 per household) in 2025 and shrinking to about $29 billion (about $245 per household) in 2030. Cumulative GDP loss will be about $1.2 trillion—about $10,169 per household.
Will most householders consider an undetectable and environmentally insignificant reduction in global average temperature of 0.02˚ to 0.04˚F worth $10,169?
Implementing the CPP will also significantly reduce employment every year through 2030, with about 16,700 fewer people employed than otherwise in 2016, rising to about 479,000 in 2027, and shrinking to about 78,500 in 2030.
Economics, Part 2: The CPP’s Impact on the Poor
According to the EIA, average Florida families spent 10% of their after-tax incomes on energy in 2013. But the 3.9 million Florida households with annual income under $50,000 spent an average of 19%, and the 587,000 families earning under $10,000 per year spent 68%—nearly seven times the average. For the average family, a 17% increase in energy prices would push energy costs to 11.7% of income; for the average family earning under $50,000, to 22%; and for the average family earning under $10,000, to a crushing 79.6%.
In short, the CPP rests on poor science, is unconstitutional, and causes economic harm—especially to the poor—far beyond its scientifically undetectable and environmentally insignificant benefits.
Such considerations are why thousands of people have signed a petition, Forget ‘Climate Change’, Energy Empowers the Poor, and hundreds of scientists, economists, and other scholars signed An Open Letter on Climate Change to the People, their Local Representatives, the State Legislatures and Governors, the Congress, and the President of the United States of America.
