ARLINGTON, Va. — National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) CEO Jim Matheson today issued the following statement on President Trump’s executive order on the Clean Power Plan:
“Affordable and reliable power is fundamental to a successful economy. We appreciate the Trump administration working to protect American families and businesses from the potentially devastating impacts of the Clean Power Plan. Today’s announcement is welcome news for electric cooperatives across the nation seeking flexibility and fairness – but it’s not yet the end of the journey. Now that President Trump has issued his executive order, we look forward to EPA undoing this rule and taking a closer look at other current regulations.
“Electric co-ops have two key missions – providing electricity and other services to more than 42 million consumers and empowering the communities they serve. The CPP jeopardizes co-ops’ ability to accomplish both. If implemented, the CPP would hit many of our electric cooperatives extremely hard by forcing them to prematurely shutter existing power plants. Those co-ops would in essence be charged twice for their electricity—once to continue paying down the loans on the closed power plants and again for the cost of purchasing replacement power.
“Today’s announcement is an important step toward protecting our cooperatives and millions of Americans from the costly impacts of the CPP as co-ops continue innovating and moving toward cleaner energy production. We look forward to working with the administration to advance our common goals and improve the lives of every rural American.”
In October of 2015, NRECA and 39 generation and transmission cooperatives petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals to review and reject the CPP. That effort laid the groundwork for a stay by the Supreme Court, giving the current administration time to review the rule and issue today’s executive order.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 42 million people in 47 states.
-###-