Boilermakers union opposes new EPA rule

Regulation will block future coal-fired power plant construction, fail to solve climate change

KANSAS CITY, KS — Newton B. Jones, President of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, AFL-CIO and CLC, today issued a statement condemning the EPA’s September 20 announcement for new source carbon dioxide emissions, noting that the agency’s severe new limits will make it all but impossible to build new coal-fired power plants. He further stressed that regulatory barriers to new construction — while doing great harm to rate-payers and the U.S. economy — will have little impact on climate change. His statement follows.

The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers has long been a proponent of sensible legislation and regulatory action to put the United States on a path to reduced carbon dioxide emissions. We have lobbied hard for these changes. Our members have been at the forefront of installing emission controls across the United States and in Canada. And we have supported President Obama’s repeated assertions that only an “all of the above” energy strategy will work for America — a strategy that embraces the continued use of coal, wind, solar, natural gas, and other power sources.

Yet, the EPA’s recent announcement appears to be a calculated move to ensure that coal will no longer be a part of that strategy by setting impossible CO2 limits for new fossil-fueled plants.

While the EPA’s final rule correctly separates emission limits for natural gas and coal, it dramatically lowers the CO2 emission limit for coal from 1,768 pounds per megawatt-hour to 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour. That level is virtually impossible to meet with commercially available technology.

The EPA’s insistence that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is commercially available is untrue. The exorbitant cost of CCS makes it economically infeasible to implement, and it has not been sufficiently tested.

Effectively, the EPA’s new source regulations will end future coal-fired plant construction, despite enormous progress that has been made in recent years with advanced emission-limiting technologies such as ultra super-critical and integrated gasification combined cycle systems.

The intentionally prohibitive EPA rule will have a major detrimental impact on utility rates and the U.S. economy, but it will do virtually nothing to curb global warming. Consider these points:

• “China’s greenhouse gas emissions are twice those of the United States and growing at 8 percent to 10 percent per year. By 2020 . . . China will emit greenhouse gases at four times the rate of the United States, and even if American emissions were to suddenly disappear tomorrow, world emissions would be back at the same level within four years as a result of China’s growth alone.” Source: Elizabeth Muller, Executive Director of the climate research group, Berkeley Earth (New York Times, April 12).

• “Despite . . . a boom in renewable energy over the last decade, the average unit of energy produced today is basically as dirty as it was 20 years ago.” Source: Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director, International Energy Agency.

• “At the end of 2012, approximately 1,200 coal plants were being planned across 59 countries — about three-quarters of them in China and India.” Source: World Resources Institute.

Clearly, the unilateral reduction of the American coal industry will not solve global climate change. If anything, it will shut down existing investment in new research that holds the key to dramatic reductions in CO2 emissions from coal-fired plants. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is free to continue to expand the use of this reliable and economic energy source that has fueled our economy for more than a century.

Today, on behalf of the Boilermakers union, I call upon the EPA and President Obama to take all necessary action to amend this ill-conceived and disastrous rule. And I call upon Congress to come together for new energy legislation that sets America on a reasonable and responsible path to measured and effective climate change rules.

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The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, AFL-CIO and CLC, is headquartered in Kansas City, KS. Our 60,000 members in the United States and Canada are engaged in heavy industrial construction and maintenance, commercial and naval shipbuilding, cement making, railroads, manufacturing, mining and other industries.