Apple is rejecting the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to revoke the Clean Energy Plan. The company presented a public comment to the EPA today arguing that the rejection of the policy, which requires reducing pollution from power plants, would overshadow the competitive advantage of the United States in the clean energy economy.
Apple's comment on the repeal proposal is the first of a company, according to Reuters . In a copy of the presentation that Apple shared with The Verge Apple calls the fight against climate change a "moral and environmental imperative that also makes good business sense".
The Clean Power Plan (or CPP) was finalized by the Obama administration, and targets power plants, the main carbon polluter in the United States. UU., According to the Obama era website. If the CPP had ever had an effect, it would have given power plants until 2030 to curb its carbon emissions by 30 percent, a measure that the Obama administration said could protect the environment, public health and pockets. of consumers.
Opponents argued that the plan was an example of a federal excess, and the Supreme Court temporarily blocked it in 2016 until both parties can fight in lower courts. But the Trump administration is moving to throw it away completely. Just a few months after his presidency, Donald Trump ordered the current director of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, to repeal it. The EPA published its repeal proposal in October 2017, and then opened it for public comment, extending the deadline from December 2017 to January 2018 and now until April 26, 2018.
Apple's comment quotes the economic benefits of supporting clean energy, including providing "corporate electricity buyers with coverage against the fluctuation of the price of fuel". The price of solar and wind energy does not change as the price of oil, according to Apple's presentation. (It also notes that China is currently outperforming the US in clean energy investments.)
The company also says that the regulation of carbon emissions from the "power plant by power plant" network is not it will work. He refers to his own experiences operating with 100 percent renewable energy here in the US. UU And the work of its subsidiary, Apple Energy LLC, which sells the excess electricity that the company generates to the network. The electricity system is too interconnected, the presentation says, so "regulation must consider the dynamic and interconnected nature of how energy is generated, sold and consumed."
That is why it is compatible with the clean energy plan, which provides a national framework for regulating the generation of electricity: "it is what is needed and what must be done".