U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Releases Final Power Plant Regulations

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final rules governing emissions from existing U.S. power plants this morning. The EPA’s plan alters the emissions targets the agency set forth in its proposed regulation, issued last year, but also gives states and industry a few more years to comply with the requirements. Next week’s Connecting the Dots will have a full summary of the regulations, but MSCI has issued a statement on the EPA’s new policy: 

“Climate change is a serious issue that we must address as a nation and as an industry, but we must do so in a way that does not do significant, irreparable harm to our economy, our businesses and our employees. While we appreciate the EPA’s efforts to give industry and U.S. states more time to comply with this rule, the agency also significantly altered the emissions reduction targets and other major parts of the proposed rule it offered last year. Studies showed that earlier proposal would have increased consumer energy costs and made U.S. businesses less competitive on the global stage. It’s likely this final regulation will have an even greater negative impact on families and job creators and, for this reason, MSCI will fully support efforts to challenge this rule in the U.S. courts.”