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Bill Helps Ohio Tackle U.S. EPA Standards
By: Andy Chow | Statehouse News Bureau
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States around the country are now working on plans to comply with recently announced carbon emission standards brought forth by the Obama Administration. The federal EPA says power plants must cut their emissions by 30 percent based off of 2005 levels by the year 2030.
A bipartisan bill in the Ohio House asks the state EPA to come up with a strategy to meet these new guidelines from the Obama administration while providing flexibility for coal-fired power plants.
Republican Representative Andy Thompson says his district around Marietta delivers about 70 percent of the total amount of coal mined in Ohio. Thompson says the state can greatly benefit from the energy source which he says is cost effective.
“Why would we eliminate that as part of our portfolio?" Thompson said. "Let’s try to find ways to make it cleaner but let’s not just discard it and when you set regulations that can’t be met and when you set regulations that existing technology cannot address then you’re really zeroing it out.”
Thompson’s bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Representative Jack Cera, who also represents a coal-rich district in eastern Ohio. It passed unanimously out of committee.