The Environmental Protection Agency proposed today CO2 standards for existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. The proposed rule would require the nation’s fleet of existing power plants to reduce CO2 emissions 30 percent by 2030 from a 2005 baseline. The flexible Clean Power Plan would grant states up to three years to submit plans to meet the goal.

The Clean Power Plan, one of the central tenets of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, will be implemented through a federal-state collaboration under which states identify a path forward using either current or new electricity production and pollution control programs to meet the goals of the proposed program.