U.S. Backing New Plan to Cripple Coal Industry at UN Climate Conference

The Biden administration is set to back a plan that would crush the coal industry at the upcoming United Nations (UN) climate summit, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The U.S. will reportedly support a French plan to get the countries of the world to ban private financing of coal-fired power plants during the upcoming UN conference, known as COP28, according to Reuters. The plan is likely to drive a rift between countries like the U.S. and France and those like China and India, which are reliant on coal to feed their economies cheap and reliable electricity.

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West Virginia’s Republican Senator Saves Its Coal Industry

Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia may be saving her state’s coal industry after the Senate Democrats’ climate bill, backed by Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, threatened to place new regulations on coal.

Manchin’s agreement included a provision that explicitly authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to further regulate coal production under a variety of legal provisions that could have rendered the recent Supreme Court rulings, which stated that Congress must clearly authorize the agency’s actions, irrelevant. However, Capito asserted that the authorization did not comply with budget reconciliation rules on the Senate floor on Sunday, leading the Senate parliamentarian to eliminate the provision, according to a press release.

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Biden’s EPA Will Use New Regulations to Bury Coal Industry

President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is placing new emissions regulations on coal plants to shut down the nation’s remaining coal-fired power stations, according to a Reuters interview with EPA Administrator Michael Regan published on Friday.

The EPA will implement regulations on coal ash and ozone to further target coal plants’ carbon emissions and environmental pollution, according to Reuters. Regan’s strategy is part of the Biden administration’s ambitious climate plan to decarbonize the power sector in the face of the Supreme Court’s recent decision to limit the regulatory powers of the EPA.

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