The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on April 4 that it would review the federal Clean Power Plan and potentially dismantle it, according to the Federal Register—but Santa Barbara County Energy Division staff says losing those federal regulations wouldn’t affect the county.
The Obama administration implemented the Clean Power Plan at the end of 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Register. Now, Scott Pruitt, who heads the EPA, is moving to potentially scrap the plan, citing the current review as a response to a change in administration.
But if the Clean Power Plan does go away, Santa Barbara County Energy Specialist Errin Briggs said California’s regulations will remain intact.
“California has its own greenhouse gas regulations that are independent of the EPA and the national federal level,” Briggs said. “Regardless of what happens on the federal level, California regulations are going to stay in place and our operators are going to be held to what they’re held to now.”
Peter Cantle, deputy director of the Energy Division, added that California has been ahead of the curve on reducing greenhouse gas emissions for the past decade.
“[The Clean Power Plan] was intended to signal that the U.S. was right there with everybody else trying to do something about greenhouse gases,” Cantle said. “The fact of the matter is, California is doing that already, and we’re pretty well ahead of any of the targets.”
Briggs said the county has its own specific regulations on greenhouse gases that limit emissions to 1,000 tons, at which point project managers must find a way to mitigate emissions, usually by giving money to programs that work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere.
Unfortunately, Briggs said, few such programs exist in Santa Barbara County.
“There are very limited local opportunities for mitigation, just because we don’t have carbon programs here in the county, and the ones we do have are very small in nature,” he said. “Local mitigation is just extremely limited.”
This article appears in Apr 6-13, 2017.