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The proposed Clean Power Plan would also make it easier

Sept. 14, 2017 by Devin Jones

The proposed Clean Power Plan would also make it easier for the coal industry to stop short of requiring states to purchase power from third parties. As a result, it would take three years for states to buy power in new coal-fired plants.

In other words, state governments would have to find ways to keep coal power plants running without triggering an environmental review.

As S&P Global points out, the EPA's review of the ACE rule is likely to be the last opportunity for states to make progress on their own, but for the coal industry to be able to resume their coal plants quickly is a strong sign that Trump's proposal to revive coal production is more than just a bad idea.

The Clean Power Plan and Clean Energy Act (EPA) are two of the most significant environmental legislation in recent history. This is not the first time Trump has offered to revive coal production when he was in office — he has already proposed that Congress extend the Clean Power Act to all states for the first time in his presidency. The Trump administration's review of the ACE rule has been criticized by environmentalists and even by some Trump supporters.

There are at least two other potential conflicts over the Trump administration's approach to coal generation. One is that the president is considering setting up a coal-fired power plant in his own cabinet, without the approval of Congress. This is particularly problematic because it would force Trump to give his own Cabinet with all the power in his power-generating agency (EPA) over to the states.

The other is that the Trump administration is planning to spend the next few months looking at whether to build a coal-fired power plant in the states. According to analysts at consultancy Baker Hughes, the Trump administration's plan will likely have to include a "high-stakes" process in which states decide whether to build their own coal-fired power plants.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the Trump administration's future power plan, it's only a matter of time before coal companies start to talk to Trump about how to get their power back, but it's clear that the administration's plans are unlikely to be able to bring together all the coal-producing states quickly enough to avoid the potential of a massive cleanup of the country's air and water.

—Andrew Kaczynski is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.A new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters finds that the amount of mercury in the air in the United States is significantly higher than in Europe, which has the highest mercury concentration in the world — almost three times the global