Environment Protection Agency

Part 1

There has been great progress made in achieving the national air quality standards.  Environment Protection Agency since its establishment has updated the less frequent spread of air pollution than it was before. Air pollution can be harmful even when it’s invisible. The problem at hand is the policy that was placed during the Obama-era for coal-fired power plants to have an expensive technology that captures carbon dioxide emissions (Sotarauta, 2018).

The Environment Protection Agency is in a position to revise the new source of performance standards for coal power plants and allow the coal-fired generators to emit carbon dioxide per megawatt. The option could ease the Obama-era policy which was highly criticized because of how expensive it was. The challenge here is that comparing the cost-benefit of this case, the benefits are few and it will only benefit the coal plant owners and eventually, environmental pollution will rollback.

The possible solutions to this problem are increasing the use of renewable energy, meeting the energy efficiency targets, and increasing the efficiency of the existing coal plants.  These solutions will work best rather than having a whole policy change and endangering people’s lives.

The standard of renewable energy needs as low as 30 percent of the utility and an additional 1.5 percent for solar energy sales. Meeting these needs by increasing renewable energy generation will minimize the emission of carbon dioxide by up to 5 percent which is beneficial.

Another solution is ensuring that the efficiency targets are met. In most states, the efficiency standard that is needed is having an implementation of utilities that are energy saving. The standard is efficient because once it’s met, there will be reduced emissions of carbon dioxide by up to 14 percent.

The other solution is increasing the efficiency of the existing coal plant. There is no necessity of building multiple plants that do not have emission regulation (Locatelli, 2020). The existing coal plants are in a position to save energy by upgrading the equipment that they have and making other improvements on operations. When the coal plant efficiency is increased there will be a significant reduction in carbon dioxide emission.

The recommended policy has some economic benefits to the nation. When energy is efficient, there will be low utility costs often. Having these alternatives help in achieving a constant supply of energy to customers and is more economical. Also, it helps in reducing the cost of conservation improvement programs.

The best implementation strategy is using the top-down approach. The approach always seeks to develop a policy that can easily be generalized and can bring forth a consistent and recognizable pattern of behaviors across different areas that the policy touches. The approach is efficient since it takes the administrative process and does not involve the political aspects of the policy (Locatelli, 2020). The policy only emphasizes the benefits that the environment and its constituents get. The alternative to navigating the political dynamics that are evident in such a situation is involving the public and educating them on the benefits of solutions that are provided.

In conclusion, it is important to know how severe the impacts are associated with the amount of carbon dioxide emission specifically from coal plants. There are several negative impacts that it comes along with including global warming, extreme weather condition and sometimes it may bring health conditions to the residents. Therefore, it is important to minimize the emission of carbon dioxide and embrace alternative solutions.

References

Air Pollution: Current and Future Challenges. (2020, November 06). Retrieved December 03, 2020, from https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/air-pollution-current-and-future-challenges

Locatelli, G., Zerjav, V., & Klein, G. (2020). Project Transitions—Navigating Across Strategy, Delivery, Use, and Decommissioning.

Sotarauta, M., &Suvinen, N. (2018). Institutional agency and path creation. In New avenues for regional innovation systems-theoretical advances, empirical cases, and policy lessons (pp. 85-104). Springer, Cham.