• EPA Clean Power Plan: EIA’s Forecast Shows Benefits Fall Well Short of Costs...Again

Reports
June 21, 2016

In May 2016, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its Annual Energy Outlook 2016, which includes model runs with and without the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP) final rule. The EIA analysis provides an independent look of the impacts CPP will have on the economy and energy markets in the United States.

While there are many aspects of EIA’s analysis worthy of review, this report focuses on four main areas:

  1. EIA’s assessment of CPP demonstrates that over the 2022 to 2030 compliance period the economic costs exceed the climate and monetized ancillary benefits by $196 to $529 billion—or from $78 to $210 per ton of carbon dioxide reduced—even when using the Obama Administration’s own inflated benefits estimates;
  2. EIA’s assessment shows that, contrary to EPA’s claim, both electricity prices and electricity expenditures will be higher under CPP, with total electricity expenditures increasing $40.5 billion over the compliance period;
  3. EIA’s assessment shows that in 2030, employment will be 376,000 lower under CPP; and
  4. EIA’s assessment shows that, contrary to statements by EPA downplaying the impact of it rules on the coal industry, coal output will decline precipitously under CPP instead of rising.

EIA‘s analysis leaves little room for doubt that EPA’s CPP is a bad deal for the American economy.