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Trump throws coal plants a lifeline, but Illinois among states showing no signs of turning back

President Donald Trump’s plan to gut climate pollution standards for power plants is a lifeline to the dwindling American coal industry, but Illinois and many other states already are shifting to cleaner sources of energy and show no signs of turning back.

The question is whether the proposal Trump unveiled Tuesday to dramatically weaken limits on heat-trapping carbon dioxide will allow aging coal-fired power plants to keep running longer than expected, slowing the transition to wind, solar and other forms of clean energy that increasingly are less expensive than coal.

Under the Trump rewrite of President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, states would be permitted to adopt their own regulations and could exempt certain coal plants from doing anything at all to reduce pollution that is steadily changing the planet’s climate. It is one of several attempts by the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress to protect the coal industry and roll back clean air and water regulations enacted during Obama’s eight years in office.

“Today’s proposal provides the states and regulated community the certainty they need to continue environmental progress while fulfilling President Trump’s goal of energy dominance,” said Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s acting administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a former lobbyist for Murray Energy Corp., an Ohio-based coal company that has spearheaded many of the attacks on Obama-era environmental regulations.

While the Trump administration promotes the proposed changes as a benefit to consumers, the fine print of its new regulations acknowledges more Americans will end up dying early from exposure to other types of pollution emitted by coal plants. “(I)mplementing the proposed rule is expected to increase emissions of carbon dioxide and increase the level of emissions of certain pollutants in the atmosphere that adversely affect human health,” the EPA states on Page 138 of its 289-page technical analysis.

Another section of the analysis flips the projected benefits of the Obama-era climate rules. Instead of treating cheaper electricity as a boon for consumers, the Trump administration considers it a cost for energy companies.

“They are continuing to play to their base, and they are following industry’s playbook step by step,” Gina McCarthy, Obama’s last EPA administrator, said in a conference call with reporters. “This is all about ‘coal at all costs.’ ”

Often lost in the bitter debate about climate change and Obama’s regulatory agenda is that many states have been weaning themselves from coal for years, prompted by a glut of cleaner-burning, less-expensive natural gas and steadily falling costs for pollution-free wind and solar energy.

Illinois is one of seven states that have met or exceeded the Obama plan’s target for a 32 percent decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from 2005 levels by 2030, according to a Tribune analysis of federal records. Others include Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee — all of which once were dominated by the coal industry and its political clout.

Even Kentucky, home of pro-coal Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is close to meeting the Obama-era guidelines, the Tribune analysis found.

Natural gas now produces more electricity in the U.S. than coal, which as recently as a decade ago was responsible for more than half of the nation’s energy. The shifting economics are a major reason why nearly 270 U.S. coal plants have either closed or been scheduled for retirement during the past eight years, according to a tally by the Sierra Club, a nonprofit advocacy group that turned up the pressure on power companies with a series of Clean Air Act lawsuits.

New-Jersey based NRG, the owner of Chicago-area coal plants, has scuttled its dirtiest units and cleaned up others or converted them to burn natural gas — dramatically improving air quality without affecting residential electric bills or the stability of the regional power grid.

What’s left of the coal fleet in Illinois struggles to compete in energy markets. Texas-based Vistra Energy Corp. has signaled that eight downstate coal plants the company acquired this year could be shut down.

“Economics — not regulation — will continue to be the primary driver of coal plant shutdowns,” said Toby Shea, a vice president at Moody’s Investors Service. “While the administration’s proposal is credit positive for owners of coal plants in the short-term, it only moderates the industry’s move away from coal in the long-term.”

At the same time, Vistra and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration are pushing for a change in state regulations that would make it easier for the company to keep its dirtiest units running. The Rauner proposal essentially is a state version of the regulatory relief Trump is proposing for coal plants nationwide.

“They are looking to run these plants as cheap and dirty as possible,” said Howard Learner, president of the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy Center. “This is just another way the Trump administration is putting its political donors ahead of public health.”

Buried in the Trump administration’s proposed climate regulations is a provision that would make it easier for coal plant owners to skip installing pollution controls when undertaking projects intended to keep the plants operating. Versions of this provision have been floated by utility interests since President George W. Bush’s administration but have been repeatedly thrown out by federal courts.

Joseph Goffman, director of the Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program and an architect of the Obama climate rules, predicted the Trump proposal also will be difficult to defend in court.

“We were betting the system would reach a point of no return,” Goffman said of the Obama administration’s goal to nudge the U.S. toward cleaner energy. “Now we are back to a situation where there are multiple conflicting signals about what happens next.”

During the past week alone, federal judges on three occasions have reinstated Obama-era environmental rules or delayed the Trump administration’s proposed changes from taking effect. Environmental groups and a group of Democratic state attorneys general, including Lisa Madigan of Illinois, already are planning to challenge the new climate proposal.

“The U.S. EPA’s complete rejection of the Clean Power Plan and our country’s path to a cleaner and safer environment will have disastrous consequences,” Madigan said in a statement. “I will take legal action to ensure the federal government does its job to protect our environment and our health.”

mhawthorne@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @scribeguy

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