Clean Power Plan FAQs

LDEQ will be conducting one or more listening sessions such that the public can provide input on the development of Louisiana's state plan.  Notices of these listening sessions will be published in The Advocate (or local newspaper for sessions conducted outside of Baton Rouge), posted on LDEQ’s Public Notices webpage, and announced via the electronic notification “listserv” described below.

The Clean Power Plan establishes the following “uniform national performance rates.”  According to EPA, these rates represent the “best system of emission reduction,” or BSER. 

State goals were calculated using the aforementioned performance rates and each state’s baseline (i.e., calendar year 2012) generation by category.  Louisiana’s goals are set forth in the table below.  Any one of the three options may be selected.

 *  States must address “leakage” to new sources under a mass-based plan.  One presumptively approvable strategy is to regulate new EGUs under the mass budget (as a matter of state law).  Under such an approach, the state’s mass budget may include the new source complement.  Other strategies include allocation methods that “counteract incentives to shift generation from affected EGUs to unaffected” EGUs or a “demonstration …, supported by analysis, that emission leakage is unlikely to occur due to unique state characteristics or state plan design elements that address and mitigate the potential for emission leakage.” 

** States may set their own milestones for the interim periods as long as they meet the prescribed (overall) interim and final goals.

According to the final rule, state plans are due to EPA on September 6, 2016, though EPA has made 2-year extensions “readily available.”  However, in light of the aforementioned stay, the date by which state plans will be due will likely be re-established based on the timing and outcome of the ongoing litigation.

A “listserv” has been established to provide electronic notification when LDEQ schedules meetings, solicits comments, or disseminates information concerning the development of Louisiana's state plan.

Correspondence concerning the Clean Power Plan can be accessed via LDEQ’s Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) under Agency Interest (AI) No. 199837.

Act 726 of the 2014 Regular Session, enacting R.S. 30:2060.1, provides LDEQ with the authority to develop a state plan in collaboration with the Public Service Commission (PSC).  Notably, Act 726 precludes the state plan from mandating than any EGU switch to other fuels (e.g., from coal to natural gas); co-fire other fuels; or otherwise limit its utilization.