https://news.yahoo.com/obama-mandate-steeper-emissions-cuts-us-power-plants-090146615--politics.html
NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama will impose even steeper cuts on greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants than previously expected, senior administration officials said Sunday, in what the president called the most significant step the U.S. has ever taken to fight global warming.
A year after proposing unprecedented carbon dioxide limits, Obama was poised to finalize the rule at a White House event on Monday. In a video posted to Facebook, Obama said the limits were backed up by decades of data showing that without tough action, the world will face more extreme weather and escalating health problems like asthma.
"Climate change is not a problem for another generation," Obama said. "Not anymore."
Opponents vowed to sue immediately, and planned to ask the courts to put the rule on hold while legal challenges play out. Many states have threatened not to comply.
In his initial proposal, Obama had mandated a 30 percent nationwide cut in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030, compared to 2005 levels. The final version will require a 32 percent cut instead, said the officials, who weren't authorized to comment by name and requested anonymity.
The final rule also gives states an additional two years — until 2022 — to comply, officials said, yielding to complaints that the original deadline was too soon. States will also have until 2018 instead of 2017 to submit their plans for how they'll meet their targets.
But the administration will attempt to incentivize states to take action earlier by offering credits to states that boost renewable sources like wind and solar in 2020 and 2021, officials said.
The focus on renewables marks a significant shift from the earlier version that sought to accelerate the ongoing transition from coal-fired power to natural gas plants, which emit far less carbon dioxide. The revised rule aims to keep the share of natural gas in the nation's power mix at current levels.
Even before the rule was finalized, more than a dozen states announced plans to fight it. At the urging of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, some Republican governors have declared they simply won't comply, setting up a certain confrontation with the Environmental Protection Agency, which by law can force its own plan on states that fail to submit implementation plans.
Yet even in many of those states, power companies and local utility authorities have started preparing to meet the targets. New, more efficient plants that are replacing older and dirtier ones have already pushed emissions down nearly 13 percent since 2005, putting them about halfway to meeting Obama's goal.
In Congress, lawmakers have sought to use legislation to stop Obama's regulation. McConnell has also tried previously to use an obscure, rarely successful maneuver to allow Congress to vote it down.
shouldn't we be asking why are these states resisting clean air and why do they intend to violate law to do so and most egregious why are they fighting to pollute the earth and by default killing us????? this is what you get when you turn over to the states the right to do just that endanger it's people and support big business instead of we the people as sworn to.
just wondering could this be one of the major reasons for the Koch crime family jamboree of 450 like minded polluters?????? i already have lung cancer too late for me but what about your families what about those fetuses the republicans are so concerned about?????
