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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 8 / Wednesday, January 13, 2021 / Rules and Regulations reason for not regulating. They argued that even if power sector emissions are decliningwhich is not at all clear they are far higher than levels necessary to keep CO2 concentrations from rising further, let alone to achieve the necessary net-zero balance. CO2
pollution accumulates in the atmosphere, where it lingers for centuries, such that a year-to-year decline in emissions does not prevent atmospheric concentrations from continuing to rise, exacerbating the impacts of climate change. The urgency of reducing emissions now, 80 FR 64520 which the EPA
acknowledged in the 2015 Rule, has only increased in recent years.
Commenters said reliance on recent emission trends is even more unfounded because U.S. climate pollution significantly increased in 2018, including a 1.9 percent increase in power sector carbon pollution. Even before the 2018 data were available, U.S.
Energy Information Administration EIA had recognized long-term market and economic uncertainty, which could potentially drive some shift back to coal generation. EIA projections now show that the general trend toward declining carbon pollution from the power sector is likely to flatten out in the early 2020s.
Commenters stated standards that even if pollution levels were declining more steadily, that would not authorize the EPA to ignore its obligation to protect the public from what will continue to be a major threat to public health and the environment. The CAA is not concerned merely with whether pollution levels are currently below their historic peak.
To the contrary, the Agency must ensure that pollution is controlled to the degree the statute requiresi.e., in accordance with a standard of performance that reflects the best system of emission reduction BSER 42 U.S.C. 7411a1.
The commenters also said that there may be other reasons why a developer would be willing to pay a premium to build a new coal-fired plant that the models do not consider 80 FR 64559
64562. Thus, it is unreasonable not to establish standards of performance on the assumption that coal-fired power plants will never again be built or modified. They said that the Agency does not even consider the fact that the source category includes not only new sources but also existing sources that undergo certain modifications, and that such modified sources have significant CO2 emissions.
Commenters said that by asking whether the Agency has a rational basis for regulating CO2 emissions from new coal-fired EGUs in light of the projections cited in footnote 25, the EPA

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is setting itself up to conduct continual market evaluations for all the EPA
regulations for which regulation is premised on a similar type of prerequisite determination. An interpretation of section 111 that leads to that result is unreasonable and impractical. They said that there is no indication in the CAA that Congress intended the Agency to undertake a continual market assessment of this nature.
Commenters stated that the endangerment finding footnote of the 2018 Proposal 83 FR 65432 footnote 25
contains a fatal factual deficiency in that it suggests that the rational basis finding might be reversed because no more than a few new coal-fired EGUs can be expected to be built, which raises questions about whether new coal-fired EGUs contribute significantly to atmospheric CO2 levels. The commenters said that not only does this suggestion disregard the EPAs 2015
acknowledgment that the CO2
emissions from even a single new coalfired power plant may amount to millions of tons each year, but it entirely ignores natural gas-fired power plants, which are also included in the source category. In making the 2015
determination, the EPA specifically observed that the CO2 emissions from even a single natural gas combined cycle NGCC unit may amount to one million or more tons per year. They said natural gas-fired power plants continue to be built at a steady clip as evidenced by the first ten months of 2018 in which 14.9 gigawatts GW of natural gas-fired EGU capacity was added to the grid. New gas plants must be accounted for and by failing to do so, the Agency would forfeit any rational connection between the facts found and the choice made, and would fail to provide a reasoned explanation . . .
for disregarding facts and circumstances that underlay . . . the prior policy.
Each of those flaws would render the decision arbitrary and capricious.
Commenters said that even if the EPA
legally could regulate CO2 emissions from new natural gas plants without regulating CO2 emissions from new coal-fired power plants, the EPA should not do so because such partial regulation would provide an inadvertent subsidy to new coal-fired plants.
Response: In this rule, the EPA is determining that GHG emissions from EGUs contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution and is promulgating revised standards of performance for EGU GHG emissions.
To the extent it is useful or necessary in this rulemaking for the EPA to further address whether long-term emission
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trends, or related considerations, are relevant for a significant contribution determination, the EPA does so elsewhere in this document.
C. Primary Criteria for Determining Significance In this section, the EPA describes criteria for determining when GHG
emissions from a source category contribute significantly to dangerous air pollution in response to comments submitted on this rule. The EPA
indicated in the 2020 Oil and Gas Policy Rule that it would finalize these criteria in a separate rulemaking. 85 FR 57039.
1. GHG Emissions The criteria discussed herein only apply to GHG in the context of the EPAs SCF under CAA section 111b1B. This action does not discuss criteria for pollutants other than GHGs. Under this framework, the EPA
is determining that the quantity of GHG
emissions from a source category is the primary criterion in determining significance for purposes of regulation of GHGs from a source category under CAA section 111b. Gross GHG
emissions are important for this set of pollutants because GHGs are global long-lived pollutants and do not have the local, near-term ramifications found with other pollutants e.g., criteria pollutants. Unlike other pollutants where both the location and quantity of pollution emissions are factors in determining the impact of the emissions, GHGs impact i.e., climate change is based on a cumulative global loading and the location of emissions is not nearly as important a factor as it is for assessing local, near-term impacts associated with criteria pollutants. It is for this reason that, when the EPA is assessing GHGs impact in contributing significantly to air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health and welfare, the quantity of emissions should be the primary criterion that the EPA should evaluate.
The GHG emissions are the best, but not necessarily only, indicator of significance because the quantity of emissions emitted from a source category correlates directly with impacts. Calculations using the Model for the Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Induced Climate Change MAGICC
model to investigate the impact of including or eliminating a single sectors emissions from 2020 through 2100 have shown that the magnitude of emissions from that single sector is very close to being linearly related to the projected temperature change in 2100
resulting from eliminating that sectors emissions. This is consistent with the
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