ATLANTA — The House Natural Resources Committee voted without opposition Thursday to a resolution urging the federal Environmental Protection Division to make its Clean Power Plan less stringent for Georgia.
Business and labor groups warned the plan would result in higher electricity rates and fewer jobs while environmental groups said compliance would trigger creation of different jobs and improve air quality.
“Railroad workers, workers in general, are concerned about this Clean Power Plan,” said Matt Campbell, a Savannah-based conductor and lobbyist for rail unions. “We’re concerned about our jobs and the impact it’s going to have on our future, the future of our industry.”
The EPA plan is designed to reduce the use of coal in generating electricity, and Campbell noted that in the Savannah area coal trains have dropped from as many as eight per day down to two or three per week. The railroads have already lost $100 million in revenue due to recent reductions in coal freight, according to CSX lobbyist Craig Camuso.
That reduction comes partly from the closure of coal-burning power plants, including 15 units Georgia Power Co. plans to shutter.
“Georgia is doing things without the Clean Power Plan,” said the resolution’s author, Rep. Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta. “We don’t need the EPA telling us what to do.”
But Ashten Bailey, an attorney for the GreenLaw firm representing the Sierra Club, told the committee efforts aimed toward compliance are partly to credit for the state’s creation of 20,000 “clean energy” jobs such as installers for solar panels and insulation which generated a combined $3 billion in revenue in 2013.
“We just need to build up that investment to get us across the finish line,” she said.
One of the two Democrats at the committee meeting explained her support of the resolution. Rep. Karla Drenner of Avondale Estates said the EPA’s enforcement relies on cooperation with the states but that it had failed to heed the state’s concerns in drafting its plan.
Although the General Assembly has no power over a federal agency, the resolution does illustrate what state policymakers are thinking.