Policy reset 

EPA move sends major climate questions back to Congress

WHEN A COLD SNAP HITS KENTUCKY, electricity is more than a convenience. It’s a lifeline. Heating systems, medical devices and basic daily routines depend on reliable power. And when winter weather drives up electricity use, the size of the monthly bill can become a real concern for families already stretching their budgets. 

Those realities help explain why a recent decision by the United States Environmental Protection Agency is drawing attention across the electric industry. 

In February, the EPA moved to rescind its 2009 “endangerment finding,” a determination that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide pose a danger to public health and welfare. That finding became the legal trigger for a long list of federal climate regulations affecting vehicles, power plants and other industries. 

Supporters of the reversal say the change is less about climate science and more about restoring balance to energy policy. 

For more than a decade, rules tied to the endangerment finding have pushed the nation’s power grid toward rapid change, faster than engineers and planners believe the system can handle. 

Electric reliability experts have warned that demand for electricity is rising quickly while dependable power plants are being retired. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which monitors the stability of the bulk power system, recently warned that “uncertainty and lag in the pace of new resource additions are driving heightened concerns that industry will not be able to keep up with rapidly increasing demand.” 

“This assessment is not a prediction of failure but an early warning on the trajectory of risk,” says John Moura, NERC’s director of reliability assessment and performance analysis. 

At the same time demand is rising, NERC estimates more than 100 gigawatts of generating capacity could retire in the coming years—enough energy to power more than half of the households in the U.S. 

Policies built on the endangerment finding have played a role in that shift. 

The finding itself originated from a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. What followed was a cascade of rules affecting automobiles, manufacturing and the electric sector. 

The Clean Power Plan sought to dramatically reduce emissions from power plants before being struck down by the Supreme Court. 

As Kentucky Living reported last year, instead of ensuring a perfectly balanced electric grid to meet the surging demand, federal regulations were forcing power providers to shut down reliable sources of baseload power. Many large coal plants have been converted to use cleaner-burning natural gas, but the new rules made it too costly to convert some coal plants, leading to their premature retirement. 

Critics of the endangerment finding argue that these policies stretched the Clean Air Act beyond its original purpose. 

“The EPA should only be allowed to regulate if it properly considers factors such as price and energy effects, potential benefits or effectiveness of a rule, and other costs and tradeoffs,” writes Kristen Walker, a policy analyst for the nonprofit American Consumer Institute. “Instead, the endangerment finding has given rise to regulations driving up costs, restricting vehicle choice, cultivating unreliable energy, eliminating jobs and industries, and hurting national security. Consumers are not better off. 

“These coercive regulations disproportionately hurt the poor who can’t afford their energy bills, let alone an expensive electric vehicle,” Walker continues. “Levels of energy poverty continue to rise, approaching half the country.” 

Environmental groups, meanwhile, say the endangerment finding reflects scientific evidence that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. 

But supporters of the reversal argue that the question now returns to where major national decisions belong: Congress. 

Rather than debating climate science, they say the discussion should reflect the laws of physics and the practical realities of how the electric grid works. 

Generating electricity requires a delicate balance of engineering and physics. Power plants must supply electricity at the exact moment customers use it, and the system must remain stable even during extreme weather or sudden demand spikes. 

Electric cooperatives know these challenges well. Their mission has always been straightforward: provide reliable power at the lowest possible cost for the communities they serve. That mission is becoming more complicated as electricity demand grows and energy policy evolves. 

The EPA’s decision does not eliminate environmental rules, nor does it settle the broader debate about energy and climate policy. Instead, it removes the regulatory cornerstone that allowed sweeping changes through agency rulemaking. 

Supporters say that is a step toward a more transparent and democratic process—one in which major decisions about the nation’s energy future are debated and decided by Congress rather than by federal bureaucracies. 

For electric consumers, the stakes are simple: keeping the lights on and keeping electricity affordable.