The Biden administration rolled out its plan Thursday to overhaul the United States’ aging patchwork of fossil-fueled electrical grids, finishing work on a suite of regulations designed to rein in rising utility bills and stem worsening blackouts while cutting planet-heating pollution from power plants.
The rule also defines criteria for “systems emergencies,” such as shortfalls in the electricity supply or extreme weather that disables power plants, in which the EPA allows all new gas-fired plants to prioritize keeping the lights on over meeting emission standards. To ease the process, the Department of Energy issued a series of final rules Thursday to fast-track environmental reviews on new transmission lines and establish a new federal program designed to speed up the permitting process.
Though not explicitly part of the latest regulations, Biden administration officials pointed to recent progress in bolstering new power plants that would run on nuclear fission or geothermal heat, two types of zero-carbon electricity that, unlike wind and solar, work 24/7 and take up a lot less land.