Zinke Rips EPA in Appropriations Hearing for Targeting Montana Energy

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today in a House Appropriations Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee hearing, Congressman Ryan Zinke pressed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan on the Biden Administration targeting Montana’s primary source of energy, Colstrip, with new power plant rules signed on April 25, 2024. The rules include a blitz of regulations designed – in the words of EPA administrator Michael Regan – to force accelerated retirements of the coal fleet. 

“In every hearing with Biden Administration’s highest-level officials, I’ve asked if they were aware of specific policies that would drastically change the lives of almost every Montanan, and they don’t seem to care – if they know what their department is doing at all," said Rep. Zinke. “It’s shameful and disappointing that we have an administration chalk full of talking heads ran by radicals who don’t seem to understand how shutting down American energy hurts everyone outside of the beltway and helps our adversaries.”

In the hearing, Regan claimed Montana was not being targeted by the EPA’s new rule, despite Colstrip being cited as a location to be retired if the power plant cannot meet strenuous requirements in the required one-year adjustment period.

Regan continued by saying the EPA Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule will result in a 1% increase in rates for Montana. That is a national figure, increases will be higher regionally as the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on Colstrip’s compliance efforts will inevitably be passed along to consumers. This would only add to the $26,000 increase in cost to the average Montana family has paid due to inflation since 2021. 

In the final rule package, Montana’s Colstrip is specifically targeted on pages 46 and 79: 

Page 46: Of these, only two Electric utility steam generating unit (EGU)s at one facility (Colstrip) currently without the most effective particulate matter (PM) controls are projected to require installation of a fabric filter (FF), the costliest PM control upgrade option, to meet 0.010 lb/ million British thermal units of heat input (MMBtu.) The remaining nine EGUs projected by the EPA to require capital investments are estimated to require various levels of electrostatic precipitator (ESP) upgrades.

Page 79: EGUs without the most effective PM controls have not been able to demonstrate filterable particulate matter (fPM) rates comparable to the rest of the fleet. Specifically, the Colstrip facility, a 1,500 MW subbituminous-fired power plant located in Colstrip, Montana, operates the only two coal-fired EGUs in the country without the most modern PM controls (i.e., ESP or FF).

“Colstrip is also the only facility where the EPA estimates the current controls would be unable to meet a lower fPM limit.”

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