Wednesday, Aug. 3, on the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration’s 2015 release of a final Clean Power Plan rule, The Roanoke Times published the following op-ed from Virginia LCV’s Executive Director Michael Town looking back on the rule and forward to a state-based plan to address climate-disrupting carbon pollution.
Town: Virginia goes its own way on climate
What a difference a year can make.
Around this time last year, environmentalists were on pins and needles waiting for a final Clean Power Plan rule to come down from the Obama administration.
The most ambitious plan to date to cut climate-disrupting carbon pollution from the energy sector, the Clean Power Plan was released in its final form Aug. 3, 2015, and immediately met with cheers from the environmental community.
By tackling emissions specifically from the power sector, the CPP addressed our nation’s largest single contributor of climate-disrupting greenhouse gases and offered the solid, flexible framework we needed to begin the long, uphill fight against climate change and a transition toward a cleaner energy future.
But as with any sweeping overhaul of its magnitude, opposition to the CPP was inevitable and it came in the form of lawsuits from fossil fuel interests and their friends.
The Supreme Court issued a “stay” of the rule, preventing it from moving forward during the legal challenge. A year later, the plan remains tangled up in the federal courts, with a hearing scheduled in late September. It’s an unfortunate roadblock preventing most states from moving forward with a state plan to cut harmful carbon emissions and comes despite the public’s overwhelming support of the rule.
In Virginia, though, we fortunately have a different story to tell: We are moving forward.
This comes despite the “stay,” a state legislature that has tried to block the CPP at every step, and an electricity monopoly unilaterally opposed to giving up any iota of control when it comes to energy generation and distribution.
Two years ago, our Governor was lukewarm, at best, on this issue. Fast-forward to today, and this very same Governor is using his authority to tackle climate change, because he knows that doing so can be an economic winner for Virginia.
June 29, Gov. McAuliffe through Executive Order 57 laid out a path to move forward by identifying ways Virginia can cut carbon emissions through its existing authority. Over the next several months, a work group chaired by Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward will lay the groundwork for a state-based regulation that will in many ways mirror the federal plan currently on hold.
The group’s work is set to wrap up by the end of April 2017 with a final recommendation due to Gov. McAuliffe by the end of May.
And the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Virginia’s coastal communities are regularly inundated with flooding from rising seas, a major issue that not only results in property damage to civilians but also poses serious risks to our Hampton Roads military installations making it a clear and present national security issue. Tangier Island, a small community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay may not be inhabitable by mid-century, creating the East Coast’s, and perhaps the nation’s, first class of climate refugees. At the same time, climate change threatens inland Virginia with extreme heat and strong, erratic storm systems and flooding that jeopardize agricultural yields and public safety.
By cutting total carbon pollution from Virginia power plants, and ensuring we have strong standards in place for those built in the future, we can not only offset these harmful impacts but also incentivize new, clean energy and energy efficiency technologies.
Virginia consistently ranks near the bottom of states in terms of solar deployment and the efficiency of our grid thanks to a lack of incentives at the state level. For example, North Carolina generates three times the number of solar jobs that we have in the Commonwealth. We now have the opportunity to level the playing field in our energy mix, creating new jobs and carbon-neutral electricity in the process.
Regardless of the immediate climate impacts to the commonwealth and its citizens, and economic benefits of transitioning to new, clean energy sources, climate obstruction, once thought to be a Washington D.C. phenomenon, has crept into Virginia’s state-level politics in an unsettling way. In rising above this fray, Governor McAuliffe has sent a clear message that we need climate solutions today — not tomorrow — in Virginia and we can do so in a way that will diversify our economy while also improving public health and safety.
While there is certainly legal precedent for the CPP to prevail in federal court, Virginia is among the handful of states that will be better off regardless of the outcome.
Michael Town | Town is executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters. Contact him at info@valcv.org.