January 21, 2016 The Midcontinent Power Sector Collaborative (formerly Midwestern Power Sector Collaborative) is a diverse stakeholder group formed in 2012 to engage EPA and states on the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the Midcontinent region. Participants include state officials, investor-owned utilities, generation and transmission cooperatives, merchant generators, public power producers and environmental organizations from the Midcontinent region or with a significant presence in the region. The Collaborative is facilitated and staffed by the Great Plains Institute.
On August 3, 2015, EPA finalized its Clean Power Plan (CPP) emission guidelines to states under Section 111(d) of the federal Clean Air Act. The CPP requires states to develop and submit for approval state plans that implement the CPP emission guidelines. In states that for whatever reason do not submit an approvable state plan to EPA by the regulatory deadline, EPA will impose a federal plan to implement the emission guidelines.
Simultaneously with the issuance of the final Clean Power Plan emission guidelines, EPA proposed a draft federal plan that consists of two model trading rules—one mass-based and one rate-based. The model trading rules can also be used by states in their state plans. EPA noticed the proposed federal plan and model trading rules in the Federal Register on October 23, 2015 and is providing a 90-day comment period, which ends January 21, 2016.