The epa is moving ahead without congress to put tougher standards for Carbon Emissions. Basically saying to the 50 states look at your total emissions in 2005. By 2030, 16 years from now, the total emissions have to be a third less. On this edition of inside story were not going to have an argument about whether its the right thing to do or a back and forth about Global Warming whether its happening or so on. This time on the program well look at the mandated reductions and ask how do you do it, whether you can do it. Already new extraction techniques and new supplies of natural gas are helping, but at the same time energy hunger is huge, add to the fridge, the dishwasher, the air conditioner, the washer dryer, the new world of phones, laptops, cable boxes and even automobiles connected to household current. How do we one industry and energyhungry households and do it without burning as much without making electricity ruinously expensive. For the sake of our familys health and our kids future we have a moral responsibility to act on climate. While attempt to go show leadership in the global fight in climate change. Well turn risks of climate into business opportunity. Well spur invasion and investment and build a worl worldleading clean energy economy. The risks are clear and high cost of climate in action keep piling up. In an historic move and under executive order the white house with the Environmental Protection agency released guidelines that aimed to slash Carbon Solution by 30 of 2005 levels. About 40 come from these power plants which is the single largest source of co2 pollution. Nearly of the 600 coalfired power plants are aging. 14 years ago coal power provided more than half of the countrys electricity. Today it provides just a third of the countrys power. We know that coal and natural gas they play a significant role today in a Diverse Energy mix. That this plan does not change that. It recognizes that there are opportunities to modernize aging plans, to increase efficiency and oh lowe paves the Power Forward to constrain carbon fuels in the carbonconstrained future. Under the act the government sets limits in the emission of arsenic, mercury, sulfur dioxide. This law does not apply to carbon dioxide. But the epa hopes it wont have to tell states what to do. There is no one size fits all solution. States can pick from a portfolio of options to meet regional, state, and community needs. Its up to states to mix and match to get their goals. Each state will have to determine on its own how to reduce emissions. The epa will provide states with a variety of options and suggests like wind, solar and others. Cap and trade, could also be used to reach lower levels by phasing in tougher standards over time. So the idea of setting Higher Standards to cut pollution is not new. Its time for washington to catch up with the rest of the country. Special interests and their allies in congress will claim that these guidelines will kill jobs and crush the economy. Lets face it. Thats what they always say. Reporter this white house action will undoubtedly face challenges in courts and congress. Republicans and democrats from coalproducing states have already voiced their concern over strengthening the epas mandates. The administration has set out to kill coal and its 800,000 jobs. If it succeeds in death by regulation, well all be paying a lot more money for electricity if we can get it. Our pocketbook will be lighter, but our. Affordable and reliable, sure we can. We can and we will. Critics claim that your energy bills will skyrocket. Well, theyre wrong. Shall i say that again . Theyre wrong. The epa estimates that utilities will have to spend under 9 billion a year to comply with the new rules. The administration plans to finalize the new guidelines next year and the rules wouldnt go into effect until 2015. Meanwhile the summit of World Leaders to discuss climb change. The question is whether the u. S. Action on emissions can act as a catalyst for world action. Even if the United States in western countries make progress it wont be enough unless the ever growing industrial powers like china and india take action, too. The how of hitting the new emissions targets introduced by the epa, theyre already being called coal killer and job killer by opponents with supporters lining up to talk about all the new jobs and new Business Activity created by a new energy economy. Joining us for that conversation from washington, vickie arroyo, executive director of the Georgetown Climate Center from Georgetown School of law. From francisco, managing director of the analysis group, and also mark mrano, public rights of the Website Energy depot. Com. You heard the administrator extolling the do ability of this grand goal. She called it ambitious but achievable. Is it both . Yes, i have been calling it ambitious, but reasonable today. It really allows so much flexibility for states to figure out where to go. I think of this as a gps system, epa said where are you going, but you can choose your root. It is not anticoal. It is not antifossil fuel. It is antiCarbon Emissions, and it really allows a reasonable time frame for the country doing more of what its been doing for the past few years. Its really doable. Mark, same question, ambitious and achievable. I would say its ambitious and probably a sad day for american history. Here we have a president whoa long history. We signed u. N. Treaties but failed to ratify them. We signed the cap and trade in 2005, 2008, the American People could not be more clear that they dont want this, and Congress Never wanted this. And it wasnt politically popular. The republicans and democrats who supported the original cap and trade climate bill regulations, if you will, in 2009, many of them were voted out. Many republicans, particularly. The idea that the president is turning to this executive order, in a way its strategically brilliant because he by passes congress, but first, should we be demonizing co2 to the level that they have done. Its horrible what theyve done. Theyre linking it to storms in the report. The president is implying that these allegedthe goals of reductions are going to alter future storms, hurricanes, floods and draws droughts. Theyre bastardizing science. This is a sad day. In fact, do we have a dictation . The path is open. Sure. Weve been told what the finish line is, and everybody has been told how you get there is your business. How is that the government dictating. The finish line. You can go to any hotel in the world but you got to at a thick hotel. You can take th the back road or highway, but what if we dont want to go to that hotel. The economic growth, jobs, the growth of focusing on gas in the atmosphere as the big boogeyman and then altering policy and making the gps system the one destination. That should not be our destination. It should be economic growth, jobs, and an Energy Abundance where the saudi arabia of coal. Were the saudi arain of fracking, if you will. This is good news for putin, this is good for china. Were shooting ourselves in the foot with hocus pocus science. It wont even effect co 2, levels in the end considering how fast there is advancement. How were these levels arrived at . I cant believe that it was just picked out of the hat. Sure, and just to be clear on a couple of fronts. One, this is not done by executive order. Its a cleaner act, a statute weve had in place for 40 years. Its achieved significant air pollution reductions while weve improved the economy. While mark thinks its a good day for our foes in other parts of the world, i think its a great day for the state. And we work with the u. S. States of all stripes, red states and blue states, and the majority of those states, 35 states have had Energy Efficiency renewable goals set, and many of their targets are more ambitious than the numbers pointed out today. Epa translated that into different numbers based on where states are starting from, what their energy mixes are, what their policies are, and theyve give them 15 years to get there and they can collaborate with other states if they like. Theyre doing that in the northeast and havent they achieved big reductions . Theyve had a cap and trade in place initiated by republican governors, pataki and romney at the time. Nine states have been trading Carbon Emissions and reinvesting in that region and an analysis that showed that it has brought 1. 6 billion of net benefits to the region and jobs because theyre plowing some of those proceeds into weatherization programs, installing alternative energy. Diversification of our Energy System is really important. Sue teirny. We have heard some supporters of the new standards, try to reassure people who have an interest in coal remaining part of the energy mix, is that a political reassurance or is that an arrangement that we can reach those 2030 targets and still have coal as part of the energy mix. I think we have a chance to have a well diverse system Going Forward. Mark would have us think that this proposed rule would rely on that weve never seen before and fuels that are not available in the United States. Neither of those is true. There is coal here. Coal does have higher emissions for Power Generation than natural gas, and certainly compared to existing nuclear, wind and solar. There will still be a role for coal. Any state that feels it has a coal plant it wants to protect, that state can figure out a way to protect that plant, make a proposal of what it will do for the rest of the system so on average they can make progress on the target. This is not an anticoal program. Right now onethird of our generating capacity is coalfired capacity, and Going Forward were likely to see still a very large and substantial role for coal in the future. Mark, well talk more but it does have to be cleaned up. Well talk more about coal after the break. Well take a short break. When we come back well talk about what i is tantalizingly around the corner and down the road for what is in store for fossil fuels. Fossil fuels. Im joie chen, im the host of america tonight, were revolutionary because were going back to doing best of storytelling. We have an ouportunity to really reach out and really talk to voices that we havent heard before. I think Al Jazeera America is a watershed moment for american journalism you. Welcome book inside story. Im ray suarez. Coilfired power plants are the single largest source of power for the United States. Exempting existing plants from the more strenuous standards with this latest proposal the epa is including existing plants giving them new targets by 2030 would be impossible without including them. Mark morano, when we talk about coal, in west indies, a major coal producer and user for its own energy mix saying the hidden reason for this is to kill coal. While we heard the epa administrator talk about an all of the above strategy that includes coal. This is an epa regulation. These regulations are announced as one thing and theyll continually evolve, change and likely expand as you go through court cases, go through future administrations. If this is allowed to be implemented, and the next president goes through with it, whatever were talking about today wont be relevant. Theyre going to change all these goals, these standards. The argument here that 50 billion and a quarter million jobs lost because of these standards. Its hard to have an accurate number because we dont know the future. Plus each state may have energy mixes. Every state is going to be u uneven. Ultimately this is a time planned by the United States government at a time when spain is walking away. At a time when germany is pore dependent on power, and australia weakened away from these reductions. So the United States is committing itself to something that the rest of the world is probably scratching their head at this point. Again, its not going to achieve anything for the climate. It wont achieve global co 2, reduction. Its pure symbol iism. This is not an insurance boil against policy of lower levels. Put it that way, if you lose a job from one cause you never will get another one from another. Is he assuming that technology is static, unless we use the machines we already have today we wont invent new ones that burn coal more cleanly or scrubbers to put on stacks over things that use come bucs in a more virtue way i mean, is he thinking about a static universituniverse here. Its not one that i recognize. If you look at the history of air pollution regulation its spurred innovation. The real surprise years down the road is how these opportunities are met. You save lives and money and its a winwin that is one important sector that they tackle. Really its ban better thing to be more efficient and more competitive part of the world. At a time when the Clean Air Act has been promulgated, have we not seen predictions of what the effect is going to be . Have we managed . Briefly did we manage . We did, but correlation is not causation. Just because you passed regulations and we had radical improvement in Water Quality we had radical Water Technological improvement which happened. The coal plants are radically changed. Not everything can be regulated. The antithesis of innovation is to have a government unelected bureaucracy like the epa dictating Energy Policy and a president on record who said he wanted electricity prices not to necessarily skyrocket. And saying one of the hazards of a free society is having energy too cheap and in auburn dance. He talked about it with contempt. This is an administration that is driven by ideology. Its not science. Why would we make these sciences . Why would we turn over our innovation, creativity, business and technology to the dictates and womens of the Environmental Protection agency who can do pretty much whatever the hell it wants to as we go forward here. When we come back we have to talk more about what happens inside marketplaces for anything when you change the Regulatory Environment that they live in. Stay with us. Saturday on techknow. The earthquake business, its similar to the weather business. Understanding our earth. But everything happens faster. Limiting disaster. These are the guts of the Early Warning system. Saving lives. Having 30 seconds of advanced warning is like a lifetime. Techknow, every saturday go where science meets humanity. This is some of the best driving ive ever done, even thought i cant see. Techknow. Were here in the vortex. Saturday, 7 30 eastern. Only on Al Jazeera America. America mobile app, available for your apple and android mobile device. Download it now welcome back to inside story. Im ray suarez. Were talking about the new emissions standards issued by the Environmental Protection agency in some of the swift andage stated reaction is some of the swift and agitated reaction a symptom of the cantdo spirit in the 21st century america. Are w 2030 is a long way off. If electricity were more expensive 16 years from now would we also use it differently . Better, more efficiently, get more bang from the same burn . Sue, you heard mark give a brief on whether this made any sense. Otherwise. I dont know how to respond to mark because it provides a dismal outlook for the United States. The history of the United States has been that we have innovated time and time again in response to having goals set by government. Especially in this area one of the amazing parts of the Clean Air Act is that it allows for tremendous innovation as a way to getto address these issues. And weve seen from the history of the last 20, 30 years what happened to the cost of Power Generation technologies, and fuel production technology. When people have set the target for how to get there then you unleash the entrepreneurs of the United States. Thats what happened with shell gas production. Wind generation technology, turbine technology, solar energy, all around both conventional and unconventional technology are more than what we first thought when we set our eyes on it. When we look down the road and figure out what this is going to cost the country, do we as accurately measure what a day of asthma or a businessing day from work costs compared to and a more expensive ton of coal or kilowatt hour of electricity. Are we very precise on those targets and fuzzy on the other things. Sure, thats right. The industry estimates are always overblown in retrospect with years down the road. And it is hard to put a dollar value on a human life, an asthma case. An emergency room visit with your child who you think might not make it. But the truth of if is its a matter of dollars and cents. States are taking these action, and to invest in renewables and invest in efficiency unless its promoting jobs in their region and state and gaining efficiency that is are saving their customers money. Even though there might be a small rate increase from the cap and trade program theyve plowed those proceeds in weatherizing peoples homes and helping them in their efficiencies to where their bill over all decrease there are net benefits to things like the economy, reliability of energy from diversifying from being more efficient. From investing in wind and solar which are very cost in part because policies. Even absent this latest set of epa regs, see where there have been tremendous reductions maybe they dont need to be gived in the behind in quite this way. Will they do it any way . Who could have foreseen the fracking revolution that brought our emissions down to mid 1990s levels and the u. S. Is doing better than the european in many ways with our reductions through technology. We dont need this. I would argue that the only change in climate that were going to see from these epa resolutions are Political Climate where Many Democrats are running very scared of this. The white house has said its okay if they dont want to support it or criticize it. Theyre sensitive to the politics of this, but it could be devastating for them because the American Republic is not going to like the bureaucracy taking over energy roles. You said that the next president will follow through on this policy. I said it depends on what the next president does. I dont know what the next president will depend. Are we looking at tons of litigation. There will be tons of litigation. You hear mark saying they were doing this any way. Well, we were already halfway there as a nation. But this will evolve. Next year, five years from now. Once you give them this expanded bureaucratic power there is no limit where they will go, whatever whims and dictates. Thats a different conversation, but we will have that one, mark. Thanks for being here. Sue and vickie, good talking to you all. This brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. On america tonight imprisoned by the taliban. Sergeant bergdahl finally freed. Im so looking forward to seeing your face after these last five and a half years, long long years. It took a highs profile prisoner swafn. Swap. Was the price too steep . We took the steps necessary to send him home. And a town long been divided. Shots fired. Cell phone video captured this deadly confrontation