The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) leads the United States environmental community’s fight against power plant emissions. Its main priority? To reduce carbon pollution, which, among other greenhouse gas pollutants, is detrimental to the Earth’s climate and the health of every global citizen. In recent years, the EPA has taken strides like never before to combat unchecked power plants across the country that produce harmful gases into the atmosphere. With the backing of the Obama Administration, environmental efforts are at the forefront of America’s priorities.

 The EPA and Carbon Pollution

What is the EPA?

The Environmental Protection Agency is tasked with protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing U.S. regulations based on environmental laws passed by Congress. Nearly half of the EPA budget is directed to grants for state environmental programs, non-profits, educational institutions, and other entities that align with its mission. The EPA also conducts and shares its own scientific studies, sponsors partnerships within the environmental community, and educates the public.

What are carbon pollutants?

According to environmental scientists, carbon pollution is the primary contributor to long-lasting climate disruption. Carbon pollutants and other greenhouse gas pollutants (gases that trap heat in the atmosphere) exacerbate natural weather conditions like floods, wildfires, and droughts and negatively impact human health. Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) makes up nearly three quarters of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and accounts for 84 percent in the United States. Other greenhouse gases include Methane, Nitrous Oxide, and synthetic fluorinated gases. The severity of damage these pollutants cause to climate depends on the abundance and strength of the gas and duration its duration in the atmosphere. Carbon Dioxide is by far the most abundant and therefore the most dangerous.

CO₂ passes into the atmosphere through “burning fossil fuel (coal, natural gas, and oil), solid waste, trees, and wood products, and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (e.g. manufacture of cement.)” In the natural carbon cycle, CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere through plant absorption. Carbon pollutants alter the natural balance; carbon dioxide is entering the atmosphere at a higher rate than it is leaving.

CO₂ emissions have been on the rise since the Industrial Revolution, but between 1990 and 2013, CO₂ emission increased by seven percent due to energy use and transportation emissions. NASA’s video below shows a visual simulation of CO₂ emissions.

Main Source of Carbon Pollution

Human reliance on electricity is to blame for an estimated 37 percent of CO₂ emissions. Transportation and industry account for most of the rest. The combustion of fossil fuel to create energy is the primary source of carbon emissions. The burning of coal, in particular, emits the most CO₂ compared to oil and gas. Therefore, coal-burning power plants are the leading cause of carbon emissions in the United States.

Coal-fired power plants first burn coal to create extremely fine talcum powder, which is blown into the firebox of the boiler with hot air. The burning coal and air combination creates “the most complete combustion and maximum heat possible.” Water, pumped through the pipes inside the boiler, turns into steam, which can reach 1,000 degrees F and has a pressure of up to 3,500 pounds per square inch. At this point, the steam is piped to the turbine generator where the pressure turns the turbine blades, therefore turning the turbine shaft connected to the generator. Inside the generator, “magnets spin within coils to produce electricity.” Lastly, steam turns back into water inside a condenser.

In a given year, an average 500 megawatt coal-fired electricity plant emits 3.7 million tons of CO₂, 220 tons of hydrocarbons (which creates smog), and 720 tons of poisonous carbon monoxide. This results from burning 1,430,000 tons of coal a year. Aside from carbon emissions, the plant will also release 10,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 10,200 tons of nitrogen oxide, 125,000 tons of ash, and 225 pounds of arsenic.

Negative Impacts of Carbon Pollutants

According to the EPA, carbon pollution causes rising global temperatures, rising sea level, changes in weather and precipitation patterns, and changes in ecosystems, habitats, and species diversity. High levels of CO₂ can cause an increase or decrease in rainfall depending on location. Rainfall influences agriculture crop yields, water supplies, energy resources, and forest and other ecosystems across the globe.

Carbon pollution causes an increase in heat waves, drought, and smog (ground-level ozone pollution). It can lead to increasing intensity of extreme events, i.e. hurricanes, precipitation, and flooding. It can also increase the “range of ticks and mosquitoes, which can spread disease such as Lyme disease and West Nile virus.” Younger children, those with heart or lung diseases, and people living in poverty could be at risk the most for feeling the effects of climate change.

Laws and Proposed Regulations

The Clean Air Act

One of the first pieces of hard-hitting environmental legislation was the Clean Air Act of 1970, which was most recently revised in 1990. The Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to establish and enforce National Ambient Quality Standards. The 1990 amendments, led by the Bush Administration, specifically aimed to fight acid rain, urban air pollution, and toxic air emissions. It defines major sources of air pollutants “as a stationary source or group of stationary sources that emit or have the potential to emit 10 tons per year or more of a hazardous air pollutant or 25 tons per year or more of a combination of hazardous air pollutants,” and requires technology-based standards. These standards are referred to as “maximum achievable control technology.

President Obama’s Climate Action Plan

On June 25, 2013, President Obama announced a plan through executive orders to reduce carbon emissions. The President created a list of carbon-reduction targets on the path of decreasing U.S. carbon emissions, preparing and adapting for climate change, and leading the global effort to address the issue. On the domestic front, Obama ordered the EPA to finalize its standards for greenhouse emissions from new and old coal-burning power plants. Although, industry heads have threatened suits if old plants are required to limit emissions.

The executive orders also called for strict standards in fuel efficiency for heavy-duty vehicles after 2018 to minimize greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. In order to prepare for climate change, Obama’s plan involves federal, state, and local governments working together in order to “increase investments in protective infrastructure.” Weather disasters accumulated $100 billion worth of damages in 2012. Internationally, Obama’s plan includes promoting “the development of a global market for natural gas and continued use of nuclear power.” The plan also calls for the Obama Administration to work with U.S. trading partners to discuss negotiations at the World Trade Organization to advocate free trade in environmental goods/services and cleaner energy technologies.

Clean Power Plan

The EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan, released in June 2014, sets state-by-state carbon emissions rate-reduction targets. The plan calls for a 30 percent reduction of 2005 carbon emission levels by 2030. The plan provides alternative plans called “building blocks” to cut carbon emissions. Some of these building blocks include: renewable energy sources, nuclear power, efficiency improvements at individual fossil fuel plants, shifting generation from coal to natural gas, and greater energy efficiency in buildings and industries. Targets per state range due to individual states’ “mix of electricity-generation resources…technological feasibilities, costs, and emissions reduction potentials of each building block.”

After comments and revisions, the plan is expected to be finalized in August 2015. The EPA anticipates a long run of legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan from coal-producing industry heads. The Obama Administration and EPA saw its first legal win last week on June 9. The suit was brought by some of the nation’s largest coal companies and 14 coal-producing states claiming the plan would jeopardize future construction of coal plants and slow U.S. coal demand. One of the lawyers leading the suit is Lawrence H. Tribe, a Harvard University constitutional law scholar and former law school mentor to President Obama. The courts, for now, have dismissed the case as premature. As Judge Brett Kavanaugh explained in the opinion, “They want us to do something that they candidly acknowledge we have never done before: review the legality of a proposed rule.” Although delayed, opposition will fight another day.

Conclusion

The future holds the final decisions from the courts regarding the Clean Power Plan. Some challenges will more than likely make their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. It will be a tough battle for the environmental community, but it is one for the health of our Earth and everyone on it. The negative impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, especially Carbon Dioxide, aren’t theories. They are facts and we have to face reality. Although no plan can reverse the damage that has already been done, we can prevent future damage from taking place. It is truly an international issue that needs international cooperation, but it starts domestically, and hopefully the United States will be the leader it needs to be in environmental conservation.

Resources

Primary

EPA: Carbon Dioxide Emissions

EPA: 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment Summary 

EPA: Summary of the Clean Air Act

Additional

CFC: Obama Vows to Finalize Carbon Standards, Other Safeguards in Climate Change Plan

DESMOG: Facts on the Pollution Caused by the U.S. Coal Industry

Duke Energy: How do Power Plants Work?

EPA: Learn About Carbon Pollution From Power Plants

EPA: Our Mission and What We Do

EPA: Overview of Greenhouse Gases

The New York Times: Court Gives Obama a Climate Change Win

Union of Concerned Scientists: The Clean Power Plan

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The nation, and quite frankly the world, is reeling after the disclosure of an investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee into the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) torture practices following September 11, 2001. The report took a long time to come out–there was significant back-and-forth from the Senate, the White House, and the CIA. But now that it has, there’s no doubt–we regularly tortured people, and it didn’t work. The report is revealing, horrifying, and honestly, not entirely unexpected.

It’s an interesting time to be an American. We’re taught, from the youngest possible ages, that if you do something bad you pay the consequences. Our justice system is proof of that–we have the highest incarceration rate in the world. With freedom comes responsibility. Despite that, the CIA operatives, leaders, and anyone else in our government who were involved in this torture will probably never be punished. It’s like the pot calling the kettle black, except the kettle is someone who’s been thrown in jail for a few years for something like well, selling pot, and the pot brutally tortured approximately 100 prisoners.

There’s significant evidence to suggest that legal tracks were covered with regard to how we treated these prisoners. International Law, as grey and ineffectual a field as it is often considered, does exist. The Geneva Conventions dictate how nations behave in war and peace, and the particularly pertinent part is called Common Article 3, which forbids torture of prisoners. Essentially, it says that if someone is no longer an active participant in the conflict because of various reasons–including being detained–they must be treated humanely and the following cannot happen to them:

(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

(b) taking of hostages;

(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;

(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.

In February of 2002, President George W. Bush signed an executive order proclaiming that Common Article 3 did not apply to Al Qaeda or Taliban prisoners; however, it was ruled four years later by the Supreme Court that Common Article 3 does apply, in a separate case regarding Guantanamo prisoners. The ridiculousness of the fact that Bush decided part of International Law didn’t exist is kind of beyond the point–the Supreme Court has even acknowledged that Common Article 3 can be used in federal court for prisoners’ protection. As The New York Times put it:

Perhaps most significantly, in ruling that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to the Guantanamo detainees, the court rejected the administration’s view that the article does not cover followers of Al Qaeda. The decision potentially opened the door to challenges, by those held by the United States anywhere in the world, to treatment that could be regarded under the provision as inhumane.

Furthermore, the Justice Department has authorized at least some of the torture tactics used, although some of that was after the fact. The Justice Department began an inquiry in 2009, but no charges were ever brought against anyone. It has announced that it’s not going to revisit that decision.

Now, with the disclosure of this report, U.N. officials are demanding that the U.S. do something. As the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad al-Huseein, put it while calling for prosecutions:

In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture recognized as a serious international crime they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency.

He also pointed out that the United States did ratify the U.N. Convention Against Torture in 1994. Other U.N. officials, as well as leading humans rights experts have come forward to condemn the U.S.’s actions and demand some sort of accountability. It would be great if there was that accountability, but at this point I would be shocked. Everything the U.S. has done–Bush and Obama administrations alike–indicate that’s not going to happen. Everything in American history indicates that’s not going to happen. We have consistently shied away from the prospect that we could be held internationally accountable for our crimes.

Now, international law is incredibly complicated; the ways in which it applies to American law even more so. No one has the exact answers about what should or could happen here. But what’s almost certainly not going to happen is any sort of American appearance in front of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Located in The Hague, the ICC has the ability to prosecute individuals for various violations of international law. The statute that governs that court–the Rome Statute–has never been ratified by the United States. And the United States has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, meaning we can’t be referred.

The torture report indicates a horrifyingly dark time in this country’s recent history. We have the opportunity to make it clear that we recognize that truth, and an obligation to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We have a chance to show that we screwed up and we’re willing to pay the price. A chance to be an example of all of those ideals–freedom, democracy, right and wrong–that we espouse to other nations. Too bad we’re almost certainly not going to take it.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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