North Central Electric (NCE) Cooperative announced Tuesday that it supports the efforts of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt to repeal the mandates of the Clean Power Plan in favor of a collaborative, common-sense approach that maintains the delivery of clean, safe, reliable, and affordable electricity.

“The Clean Power Plan is an overreach of federal authority, and it hampers the ability of electric utilities to reliably —and affordably — generate and distribute power to customers,” said NCE General Manager Markus Bryant. “North Central, along with Ohio’s 23 other electric cooperatives, is committed to responsible, practical, and flexible regulations that help to lower emissions, while recognizing the tenets of the Clean Air Act,” Bryant said.

As the EPA develops a new approach to regulating carbon dioxide, Bryant emphasized that the revised structure must:

• be consistent with the EPA’s decades-long practice that technological or operational performance standards can be implemented at the source itself;
• protect reliability of energy supply to consumers and businesses;
• minimize undue economic impact for consumers; and
• provide electric cooperatives with long-term regulatory clarity and certainty.

Ohio electric cooperatives have invested $1.2 billion in emissions control systems at their Brilliant, Ohio-based Cardinal Generating Station, the primary source of power for Ohio’s electric cooperative network. Cardinal is now considered one of the most environmentally friendly coal-fired power plants on the globe.