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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Former Grid Regulators: Carbon Rules Don't Threaten Power Reliability

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Monday, February 23, 2015   

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Cutting carbon pollution from power plants shouldn't threaten electrical reliability according to the folks whose job it was to keep the grid humming in past years.

Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to cut existing power plant greenhouse gas emissions warn it could cause rolling blackouts.

But a number of former grid regulators say the nation's electrical system has proven very adaptable. Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Marc Spitzer says the current commission knows better than to mix politics with what is really a complex technical question.

"Politics in this country, we are polarized," he says. "The people who are responsible for the grid in terms of reliability, affordability and proper environmental outcomes, feel a little bit put upon by the rival political factions."

Spitzer says the politics bear little relation to principles of electrical engineering. Under the proposed EPA requirements, Pennsylvania would cut about 30 percent of carbon emissions from existing power plants by 2030. Observers say much of that has already happened or is underway.

At least three separate studies have said the grid should be able to shift to cleaner power sources without threatening reliability. Cheryl Roberto is with the Environmental Defense Fund, but is a former member of Ohio's Public Utilities Commission.

"A number of well-respected organizations have concluded there is no material reason that, with good planning, we should experience reliability problems," she says.

Roberto and others point to the flexibility the EPA plan gives states and utilities to find their own ways to meet the requirements.

Plus a fail-safe could be written into the regulations. Glen Thomas, president with GT Power Group, is the former chairman of the Pennsylvania Utility Commission.

He says operators for the grid that serves states including Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, have suggested a "safety valve" in the rules to allow for contingencies.

"Obviously we're talking about a very big change here," says Thomas. "History suggests that the markets, if set up the right way, can absorb some of this."


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