EPA Urged to Adopt Stronger Incentives for Clean Energy, Energy Efficiency in Clean Power Plan

Charlottesville, VA—As model carbon trading rules are finalized for the Clean Power Plan, clean energy supporters are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to let energy efficiency and renewable energy compete on a level playing field with traditional monopoly utility power plants. The Southern Environmental Law Center will provide comments tomorrow to EPA on the model trading rules, outlining how the Southeast in particular stands to gain from a better model framework.

The on-the-ground impact of the Clean Power Plan rests largely on its implementation by the states, and the model trading rules provide an easy “off the shelf” option for meeting Clean Power Plan goals. Southeastern states have a heavy interest in adopting the model rules, so the specifics of those rules will influence how much Southeast communities benefit from the Clean Power Plan.

“EPA has the opportunity to change energy incentives that have left the Southeast behind—as a region, we rank eighth in the world in carbon pollution, which has created a host of public health and environmental problems for our communities,” said SELC Senior Attorney Frank Rambo, leader of the organization’s Clean Energy and Air program. “But as currently proposed, the model trading rules do not go far enough to support consumers’ freedom to lower their power bills through efficiency upgrades and home-grown solar generation.”

Most importantly, the proposed rules do not provide enough incentive for new energy efficiency and renewable energy investments, as they are designed to leverage existing state programs and practices. This approach ignores that the Southeast has historically underinvested in energy efficiency and continues to lack strong state policies that encourage more investment. For example, 70 percent of Southeastern states rank in the bottom quarter nationally for energy efficiency efforts—despite the fact that our region has a higher percentage of impoverished and low-income residents who would benefit from energy savings.

In addition, the Clean Energy Incentive program—an important tool for encouraging early investment in renewables and energy efficiency—will not actually provide any credits until 2020, which  could have the unintended effect of delaying money-saving efficiency programs for some of our poorest communities.

“Given the higher rates of poverty in the Southeast, it’s important that we be able to meet Clean Power Plan goals through energy efficiency programs as much as possible,” said Frank Rambo. “Low-income customers are too often forced to spend large amounts of their limited income on home energy bills, so energy efficiency programs offer families the greatest savings, while also creating good local jobs.”

Low income families in the Southeast spend a higher percentage of household income on energy costs than their peers: their energy spending is nearly three times the average for non-low-income households—9.6 percent compared to 3.2 percent. Additionally, the Southeast is home to over 56% of the manufactured mobile homes in the United States, which use nearly twice the energy per square foot as single family homes.

The proposed rules also contain unnecessary and burdensome obstacles to using solar power to meet Clean Power Plan goals, despite this unprecedented opportunity to support the expanding solar market in the Southeast.

“It is critically important that this initiative be carried out in a way that supports cheaper, cleaner energy options historically ignored in the Southeast,” commented Rambo. “This is not just for the sake of successfully implementing the Clean Power Plan, but for the sake of the Southeastern communities that have the most to gain.”