Clean Power Plan provides path for safer climate, catalyst for clean energy jobs in the Southeast

This afternoon the Obama Administration will release the final version of the Clean Power Plan, the country’s strongest action ever to reduce carbon pollution and pave the way for cleaner and more affordable energy choices.

Over the next fifteen years, the Clean Power Plan will cut by one-third carbon emissions from power plants, currently the nation’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions. While the final version sets even more ambitious limits than the proposed rule, it continues to provide maximum flexibility to each state to design its own most cost-effective way to meet the targets, tailored to its specific needs.

In response to today’s announcement, Senior Attorney Frank Rambo, leader of our Clean Energy and Air program, released the following statement:

“The Clean Power Plan provides a milestone opportunity for the Southeast to make smarter choices about how we generate energy in our region, which will improve public health by reducing pollution and create new jobs through clean energy investments.

While the public health and climate benefits are reason enough to take action, the Clean Power Plan promises significant economic benefits as a major jobs driver. We have the potential to attract new businesses to our states and to create thousands of good-paying, local jobs by producing power from cleaner sources like solar and wind, and making better use of the energy we do produce through energy efficiency programs.

And the reality is the strategies to meet the Clean Power Plan reflect the energy shift already underway in our states: we’re embracing smarter, cleaner, cheaper energy options that would be happening with or without this plan. As a result, our states are well-positioned to meet these reasonable and inevitable pollution reduction targets.

The bottom line is we need the Clean Power Plan to protect the Southeast’s vulnerable resources from climate change, but we can also use the Clean Power Plan to accelerate our region's job-generating shift to clean power.”