Gizmodo’s Sidney Fussell quotes Near Zero’s Danny Cullenward in a story about Scott Pruitt’s confirmation as EPA Administrator:
In 2015, Pruitt led a coalition of 28 states in a lawsuit against the EPA that aimed to block the [Clean Power Plan’s] implementation, saying it overburdens coal-dependent economies by forcing them to choose between energy production and federal compliance. Some states, Pruitt argued, will see massive layoffs in the energy sector and state-wide power shortages.
“Those are alarmist talking points,” said Danny Cullenward, a research associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science. Cullenward points out that a number of states, even those protesting the law, are close to meeting its regulatory goals. “The idea that this is gonna cause blackouts and massive layoffs is really a farce. There are massive transformations underway in the US power sector that are driven by completely different forces,” including the booming natural gas industry, and rapidly-falling cost of renewable energy.
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“Climate policy isn’t killing the coal industry, economics is killing the coal industry,” Cullenward said, explaining that the decline in American coal production is part of a nationwide shift to natural gas and renewable energy. “The pursuit of natural gas under first the Obama Administration and now the Trump Administration is really putting the nail in the coffin [for coal].”
Read the full article, “Three Ways New EPA Head Scott Pruitt Will Dismantle Environmental Protection” by Sidney Fussell, on the Gizmodo site.