Report: EPA air rules for electric power plants to create jobs

Compliance with forthcoming Clean Air Act (CAA) rules affecting electric power plants will create approximately 1.46 million jobs over the next five years, according to a recent report by CERES (Boston, MA), a coalition of investors, environmental groups, and other public interest organizations, and the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The report, titled New Jobs-Cleaner Air: Employment Effects under Planned Changes to EPA’s Air Pollution Rules, evaluated the impacts of EPA’s forthcoming Clean Air Transport Rule (CATR), which focuses on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants in 31 eastern and Midwestern states, and the so-called “Utility MACT,” rule, which will require power plants to implement maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards to control emissions of hazardous air pollutants. According to the report, the electric power industry will invest nearly $200 million in the design, installation, and construction of pollution controls to reduce those emissions, generating the 1.46 million direct jobs at the plants and indirect jobs at the manufacturers of the control systems.