Clean Power Plan Stay is Bad News for Texas, Natural Gas

The Supreme Court recently halted implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, the flagship climate change program for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Texas is a plaintiff in the case, so this is a big win for state officials, but it is a victory that will come at the expense of the health and welfare of every Texan. The decision took legal experts by surprise. In fact, earlier in the day one of us stood in front of several hundred people at a renewable energy conference and predicted that the court would deny the stay. To see why, you need to understand the benefits of the EPA's climate change regulations and the narrow lens through which the court judged them. We recently took a closer look at the projected impacts of the Clean Power Plan. We found that the benefits exceeded the costs by a wide margin, not only nationally but within each electricity market across the country.