You have likely heard in the news that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released another round of proposed regulations. We would like to explain what these regulations could mean to you.
What are these new regulations?
The latest round of regulations seeks to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from Indiana’s power plants by more than 20 percent in the coming years. The EPA believes placing these strict limits on power plants will dramatically lower coal use in Indiana and around the country.
Does my cooperative support a cleaner environment?
Absolutely! We routinely take steps to lessen our impact on the environment both at the individual distribution cooperatives and at the power plants that supply our electricity.
Our generation and transmission cooperatives, Wabash Valley Power and Hoosier Energy, are always working at our power plants to meet and surpass environmental regulations. In recent years, our partners have worked diligently to find creative ways to produce clean power for you. We use alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, hydro, landfill gas and coal bed methane. In fact, Indiana’s electric cooperatives have a greater percentage of renewable energy sources than any other utility in the state, and we continue to add more each year. Every day, we work to improve our impact on the environment while balancing the cost of those investments to protect your family’s budget.
How will these new regulations affect me?
We are still working through the more than 600 pages of documents to understand how these regulations impact your family. What we do know now is that these regulations will increase your electric bill and threaten thousands of jobs in Indiana.
While we work to understand the full impact to your family’s budget, we believe you deserve to know the changes required by this regulation will increase your electric bill. In fact, regulations finalized over the last five years are already projected to increase your bill by more than $50 per month in the next ten years.
We are also very concerned about the impact the proposed regulations could have for Indiana’s economy. The production of coal and the jobs that rely on affordable energy from coal make up much of Indiana’s economy. Those jobs and our growing Hoosier economy are threatened under the approach we are seeing from the EPA.
Where does my cooperative stand?
We believe the EPA approach is the wrong one. We are in favor of a cleaner environment and want to work with the EPA to find a clean and affordable path forward. We are urging the EPA to reconsider its approach and work with us on regulations that recognize the importance of coal, natural gas, nuclear, renewable and efficiency options that keep electricity affordable. In other words, we support an all-of-the-above approach.
What can I do to support Indiana’s electric cooperatives?
The good news is that the EPA has been clear that they want to hear from you. Tell them what you think by visiting action.coop. Urge them to work with us on these regulations to limit the impact on your electric bill and Indiana’s growing economy, and to find a common sense solution to leave our children a cleaner planet.
