Biden administration about to propose first controls on greenhouse gases from power plants that burn coal and gas

After 16 years of political, bureaucratic and legal talk about it, the federal government "is poised to announce limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants that could compel them to capture the pollution from their smokestacks, technology now used by fewer than 20 of the nation’s 3,400 coal and gas-fired plants," report Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman of The New York Times.

The plants "generate about 25 percent of the planet-warming pollution produced by the United States," and 60 percent of its electricity, the Times reports. The rule would apply to future plants, either preventing their construction or perhaps requiring them to use commercially unproven technology to capture carbon dioxide they emit. "The proposed rule is sure to face opposition from the fossil-fuel industry, power-plant operators and their allies in Congress, and a lawsuit by Republican attorneys general, Davenport and Friedman report.

The legal landscape has changed since the Supreme Court blocked the Obama administration's attempted limits on power plants. Last year, the court "confirmed that the EPA had the authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants but in a limited way," an\d then Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act "that classified greenhouse gases as pollutants to be regulated" and created tax credits to plants that capture carbon, a technology that "has advanced since the Obama administration," the Times reports.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the proposal, which is expected to be made formal soon so it can go through a public comment period and be implemented next year, preventing Republicans in Congress from nullifying them if they win control of both houses in 2024.