If the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) is repealed or granted a relaxed timeline, it would be a financial benefit to public utilities, but could hurt the future of nuclear power, according to ratings agency Standard & Poors.
The CPP calls for a 32 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2030. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed the plan last year and remanded it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which has not yet issued a ruling.
Besides the legal battle, there is uncertainty over CPP’s future, and utility regulation in general, under the new Trump administration, S&P said.
The short-term impact of a CPP delay would be that utilities would be able to lower emissions more gradually, relieving them of some potential costs.
But for nuclear plants, which are already struggling to compete against low natural gas prices, a repeal of CPP would undermine the economic rationale for keeping plants operating or building new ones, S&P said.
S&P’s analysis was included in a report Thursday that gave a mostly rosy outlook for the fiscal stability of the U.S. public power sector, which it predicts will experience continued fiscal stability thanks largely to rate-setting autonomy and a lack of competition.
