Summary of Clear Skies
The emissions reductions from Clear Skies would help to alleviate
our nation's major air pollution-related health and environmental
problems including fine particles, ozone, mercury, acid rain,
nitrogen deposition, and visibility impairment.
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Clear Skies would:
- Cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 73 percent, from
year 2000 emissions of 11 million tons to a cap of 4.5 million
tons in 2010 and to a cap of 3 million tons in 2018.
- Cut emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 67 percent,
from year 2000 emissions of 5 million tons to a cap of 2.1 million
tons in 2008 and to a cap of 1.7 million tons in 2018.
- Cut mercury emissions by 69 percent - the first-ever
national cap on mercury emissions. Emissions would be cut from
1999 emissions of 48 tons to a cap of 26 tons in 2010 and to a
cap of 15 tons in 2018.
Clear Skies Would Use a Proven System of
Emission Caps to:
- Protect against diseases by dramatically reducing smog
and fine particles which contribute to respiratory and cardiovascular
problems.
Learn More.
- Protect our wildlife, habitats and ecosystem health by
reducing acid rain, nitrogen and mercury deposition.
Learn More.
- Cut pollution further, faster, cheaper, and with more certainty,
using a "cap-and-trade" program that would deliver rapid and certain
improvements in air quality.
Learn More.
- Enable power generators to continue to provide affordable
electricity while quickly and cost-effectively improving
air quality and the environment.
Learn More.
- Encourage use of new and cleaner pollution control technologies
that would further reduce compliance costs.
- Clear Skies is modeled on the cap-and-trade provisions of the
1990 Clean Air Act's extremely successful Acid Rain program.
- Mandatory emission reductions would be achieved through
a cap-and-trade program.
- Federally enforceable emissions limits (or "caps") for each
pollutant would be established.
- Sources would be able to transfer these authorized emission
limits among themselves to achieve the required reductions
at the lowest cost.
- Clear Skies would not replace the authority of state and
local government to set source-specific emissions limits to
ensure that ambient air quality standards will be met.
Multipollutant Legislation for the Power
Sector Is a Better Approach to Clean Air
In the United States, power generation is responsible for 63% of
sulfur dioxide (SO2), 22% of nitrogen oxides (NOx), and 37% of mercury
released to the environment by human activity. Once released, these
pollutants, together with the gases and particles they form in the
atmosphere (e.g., ozone and particulate matter), can travel long
distances before being deposited. Environmental and public health
problems resulting from power generation emissions include:
- Diseases of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems associated
with exposure to fine particles (particulate matter) and ozone;
- Regional haze that impairs visibility in national parks and
wilderness areas;
- Acidification of lakes, streams, and forests;
- Ecosystem and public health effects associated with the accumulation
of mercury in fish and other wildlife;
- Acidic damage and erosion of buildings, statuary, and other
materials;
- Ozone damage to forests; and
- Eutrophication (a condition in an aquatic ecosystem where high
nutrient concentrations stimulate blooms of algae) in coastal
areas.
While the Clean Air Act has significantly improved some of these
issues, additional reductions in emissions of SO2, NOx, and mercury
are necessary to address persistent public health and environmental
problems. Because these pollutants move beyond state and regional
boundaries, individual states or localities experiencing the direct
environmental effects cannot always control them. In addition, current
law tends to address each environmental problem independently, even
if one pollutant contributes to several problems. To more effectively
address the environmental problems caused by power generation, there
is a need for a national program that would take advantage of the
benefits that would result from controlling multiple pollutants
at the same time.
Clear Skies would do this. It is a simple, cost-effective way of
improving air quality over broad, multi-state areas in a way that
makes sense for everyone. The Clear Skies approach would deliver
guaranteed emissions reductions of SO2, NOx, and mercury at a fraction
of command and control costs, increasing certainty for industry,
regulators, consumers and citizens, while maintaining energy diversity
and affordable electricity.
Clear Skies Reduces and Caps Power Plant
Emissions
Clear Skies is a mandatory program that will dramatically reduce
power plant emissions of SO2, NOx and mercury by national cap on
each pollutant at an average of 70% below today's levels. Over the
next decade, Clear Skies would achieve substantially greater reductions
in pollution from power plants than are attainable under current
law.
NOx and SO2 requirements affect all fossil fuel-fired electric
generators greater than 25 megawatts (MW). Mercury requirements
affect only coal-fired electric generators greater than 25 MW.
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First Phase of Reductions
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Second Phase of Reductions
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Reduction at Full Implementation
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SO2
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11.2 million tons
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4.5 million tons
in 2010*
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3 million tons in 2018*
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73%
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NOx**
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5.1 million tons
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2.1 million tons in 2008*
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1.7 million tons in 2018*
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67%
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Mercury
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48 tons
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26 tons in 2010
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15 tons in 2018*
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69%
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* Because sources can reduce emissions
early, earn allowances for those actions, and use those allowances
later, actual emission levels will be higher than the cap in the
first years of these phases. Further, the Clear Skies Act contains
"safety valve" provisions for NOx, SO2, and mercury to
limit the marginal costs of removal of each of the three pollutants
if costs exceed a certain threshold. The 2003 modeling, based on
current technological capabilities, shows that the cost of mercury
removal is expected to exceed the safety valve threshold for the
Phase II caps. However, technological improvements could decrease
the cost of mercury control over time and cause prices to remain
below safety valve levels.
** The NOx cap is divided between two zones with separate
trading programs under each zone. Zone 2 includes states participating
in the WRAP process as well as Nebraska and some of Western Texas.
Zone 1 includes the remaining 33 states in the continental U.S.
and the remaining portion of Texas.
Clear Skies Provides Significant Benefits
at a Reasonable Cost
Clear Skies would result in significant benefits to public health
and the environment:
- EPA projects that, by 2020, the public health benefits alone
from Clear Skies would include more than 14,000 avoided premature
deaths and total $110 billion per year, substantially outweighing
the annual costs of $6.3 billion.
- An alternative methodology for calculating health-related
benefits projects over 8,400 premature deaths prevented and
$21 billion in health benefits - still far greater than the
costs.
- EPA projects early reductions in 2010 would result in 7,900
fewer premature deaths nationwide and $54 billion in annual
health benefits at a cost of $4.3 billion. The alternative
methodology projects that early reductions would prevent 4,700
premature deaths and deliver $10 billion in benefits in 2010
- again, still far greater than the cost.
- Americans would also experience approximately 30,000 fewer visits
to the hospital and emergency room, 23,000 fewer nonfatal heart
attacks, and 1.6 million fewer work loss days and 200,000 fewer
school absences each year under Clear Skies by 2020.
- Benefits of improvements in visibility in our national parks
and wilderness areas in 2020 would be $3 billion annually.
Clear Skies would help state and local governments attain the National
Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particles (PM2.5)
and ozone:
- By 2010, an estimated additional 42 counties with 14 million
people would meet the fine particle standard and an additional
3 counties with 1 million people will meet the 8-hour ozone standard.
- By 2020, an estimated 35 additional counties with 12 million
people would meet the fine particle standard.
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