Partnership for a Better Energy Future critical of EPA's Clean Power Plan

The Partnership for a Better Energy Future (PBEF), a group of organizations and trade associations, criticized the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final Clean Power Plan in a release issued on Monday, calling the regulation expansive and far-reaching.

“This regulation will be exceptionally difficult for manufacturers to meet and will increase energy prices and threaten electric reliability,” National Association of Manufacturers CEO Jay Timmons said. “Manufacturers need policies that foster continued innovation, encourage new investments and allow manufacturers to remain competitive — not ones that punish and penalize. This regulation and the president’s Climate Regulatory Action Plan are not the answer.”

While the EPA and President Barack Obama have promoted the regulation’s flexibility when it comes to states’ implementation, PBEF and its members, as well as some states, expressed their concerns over the rule’s potential affects on electricity costs and electric grid reliability.

“Even in the face of damning analyses and scathing opposition from across the country, EPA’s final carbon rule reveals what we’ve said for months – this agency is pursuing an illegal plan that will drive up electricity costs and put people out of work,” American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity President and CEO Mike Duncan said. “This rule fails across the board, but most troubling is that it fails the millions of families and businesses who rely on affordable electricity to help them keep food on the table and the lights on.”