Regulatory Uncertainty and Coal-Fired Power Plant Development

Elizabeth K. Hocking

---

DOI: 10.2190/ES.33.2.c

Abstract

In a 5-year period only 12% of the projected coal-fired power plant capacity was actually installed. Among the explanations cited for the decline was the absence of a regulatory structure related to greenhouse gases and climate change. Executive resistance to regulating one of those greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, and judicial insistence that the executive make a clear determination as to why it would or would not use its authority to issue those regulations created a climate of uncertainty affecting at least one segment of the nation's energy sector.

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.