?tUPDATE: Citing industry progress on emissions, AEP hopeful McCarthy brings even hand to future rules

摘要

Citing steady progress in emissions reductions across not only the company's fleet but also the industry, American Electric Power Co. Inc. President and CEO Nicholas Akins said July 25 that he is hopeful the U.S. EPA's newly confirmed administrator, Gina McCarthy, will bring an evenhanded approach to future power plant emissions regulations.nnMcCarthy, confirmed by the U.S. Senate on July 18, is tasked with leading the EPA's mandate handed down by President Barack Obama to finalize and issue sweeping greenhouse gas rules for existing power plants. nnOn its face, Obama's climate plan is, Akins said, balanced in its support of clean coal, natural gas, nuclear and renewable generation. nn"But I guess the proof comes with what the administration will do, and the EPA will do, as a result of some of the activities they're going through," Akins said during a conference call following the release of the company's second-quarter earnings. "It's certainly clear that they need to be consistent and reasonable in their approach."nnDue to existing regulations, coal plant retirements, coal-to-gas switching and other measures, Akins said AEP expects its generation fleet to have achieved an 18% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2015 without additional regulation — ahead of Obama's pledge to reduce CO2 emissions by 17% by 2020.nn"The industry itself has already achieved 16% reduction because of these activities, so this is not a time to really impair the economy even further. The mercury rules and the natural gas revolution have already achieved the objectives … so there's no reason to further cripple an economic recovery of this nation by adding a larger burden of onerous greenhouse gas requirements that further jeopardize the economic recovery, and even the electric grid itself," Akins said.nnHe added that AEP would support some type of efficiency requirement for power plants. The company's own generation business is going through an efficiency improvement process, expected to save millions in costs per plant.nn"I believe a Gina McCarthy-led EPA will be more responsible and reasonable, particularly with what has already been achieved with the mercury rules where, certainly, we're seeing more retirements related to that, much more than even the EPA had anticipated," Akins said. "So hopefully we'll wind up with a reasonable solution that we can work forward with, particularly as it relates to existing units."