Montana Commissioners Support Repeal of Clean Power Plan

In a series of statements issued by individual members of the Montana Public Service Commission, all of the commissioners appeared to support the action taken recently by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt to repeal the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. They described the move to roll back the plan as an important step toward unwinding what they view as the “disastrous legacy” of the Clean Power Plan.

Travis Kavulla, the vice chair of the commission, said that the Clean Air Act had been intended to give EPA authority to require upgrades to power plants. But, he stated, the EPA under the Obama administration had reinterpreted the law and then proceeded to “attempt to rearrange the entire structure of the electric sector.” From Commissioner Kavulla’s perspective, the resulting Clean Power Plan was actually “less about carbon emissions than it was about raw political power and one federal agency’s desire to obtain it.”

In that same vein, Commissioner Tony O’Donnell opined that the “draconian” emission reductions specified in the plan would have caused “substantial hardship for Montana families in the form of higher electricity rates and lost jobs without achieving any meaningful reduction in global [carbon dioxide] levels.” Commissioner Roger Koopman shared in that view, remarking that the EPA, through the Clean Power Plan, would have taken a “wrecking ball to Montana’s economy, based on dubious, unproven scientific claims.”

Those three members were joined by Commissioner Bob Lake, who stated that while it was too soon to know whether the rollback will help preserve the coal industry, he had little doubt that the Clean Power Plan was “a major factor driving the accelerated closure of coal plants in the West.”