Bill Text: FL S1174 | 2014 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Carbon Dioxide Emissions Guidelines

Spectrum: Bipartisan Bill

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2014-05-09 - Signed by Officers and filed with Secretary of State [S1174 Detail]

Download: Florida-2014-S1174-Introduced.html

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       Florida Senate - 2014                                    SM 1174
       
       
        
       By Senator Gibson
       
       
       
       
       
       9-00958A-14                                           20141174__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the United States Environmental
    3         Protection Agency, urging it to allow states to
    4         develop and implement their own performance standards,
    5         compliance schedules, and guidelines for regulating
    6         carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
    7  
    8         WHEREAS, the United States holds the world’s largest
    9  estimated recoverable reserves of coal, and
   10         WHEREAS, the United States Energy Information
   11  Administration projects that the carbon dioxide emissions from
   12  the electric sector will be 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020
   13  and that carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s coal-fired
   14  power plants will be 19 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and
   15         WHEREAS, it is in the best interest of the residents of
   16  this state to continue to benefit from reliable and affordable
   17  electricity provided by coal-fired electric generating plants
   18  and clean, renewable energy sources, and
   19         WHEREAS, current carbon dioxide emissions regulations for
   20  existing coal-fired power plants threaten the premature closure
   21  of plants that have recently invested in pollution controls to
   22  meet the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
   23  regulations, and
   24         WHEREAS, on June 25, 2013, President Barack Obama directed
   25  the EPA Administrator to issue standards, regulations, or
   26  guidelines to address carbon dioxide emissions from new,
   27  existing, modified, and reconstructed fossil-fueled power plants
   28  and expressly recognized that states play a key role in
   29  establishing and implementing such standards, and
   30         WHEREAS, the federal Clean Air Act of 1970, as amended,
   31  requires the EPA to establish a procedure under which each state
   32  must develop a plan for establishing and implementing standards
   33  of performance for existing power plants, and
   34         WHEREAS, the Clean Air Act expressly authorizes states, in
   35  developing and applying such standards of performance, to take
   36  into consideration, among other factors, the remaining useful
   37  life of the existing power plant to which such standards apply,
   38  and
   39         WHEREAS, the EPA’s existing regulations give states
   40  flexibility in adopting emissions standards, in the interest of
   41  making the standards more reasonable, and allow states to adopt
   42  compliance schedules that are longer than those recommended, in
   43  the interest of taking into account issues such as the cost of
   44  control equipment or the physical impossibility of installing
   45  necessary control equipment, and
   46         WHEREAS, the people of this state support an all-inclusive
   47  energy strategy that allows states to develop guidelines and
   48  state-based performance standards that provide them with the
   49  flexibility to regulate existing coal-fired power plants within
   50  their jurisdictions, NOW, THEREFORE,
   51  
   52  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   53  
   54         That the United States Environmental Protection Agency is
   55  urged to respect the primacy of states and to rely on state
   56  regulators, who take into account the unique policies, energy
   57  needs, resource mix, and economic and environmental priorities
   58  of their respective states in developing performance standards,
   59  compliance schedules, and guidelines for regulating carbon
   60  dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
   61         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be
   62  dispatched to the Administrator of the United States
   63  Environmental Protection Agency.