UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

WASHINGTON, D.C 20460 

JUL 12 2011 

OFFICE OF 

AIR AND RADIATION 

Mr. Billy Ray Jones 

Mayor 

City of Nashville 

426 North Main Street 

Nashville, Arkansas 71852 

Dear Mayor Jones: 

Thank you for your letter of June 20, 2011, to Lisa Jackson, expressing concern over several potential 

impacts of the proposed "National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants from Coal- and Oilfired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units and Standards of Performance for Fossil-Fuel-Fired 

Electric Utility, Industrial-Commercial-Institutional, and Small Industrial-Commercial-Institutional 

Steam Generating Units" (the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, MATS), which was published in 

the Federal Register on May 3, 2011. The Administrator asked that I respond on her behalf. 

The EPA carefully analyzed the issue of electric reliability, working closely with the Department of 

Energy (DOE). Our modeling shows that these proposed standards would result in relatively small 

changes in the average retail price of electricity, primarily due to increased demand for natural gas, 

keeping electricity prices below 1990 levels. This translates into a 1.3 percent increase in residential 

natural gas prices and a consumer electricity price increase of approximately $3-4 per month. 

The proposed standards, which will save thousands of lives and prevent tens of thousands of astluna and 

heart attacks, are both reasonable and achievable, and many sources already are meeting them. Investing 

in pollution control at power plants creates high-quality American jobs in manufacturing steel, cement, 

and other materials needed to build pollution control equipment, and in installing, operating, and 

maintaining that equipment. The EPA estimates this proposed rule will provide employment for 

thousands by supporting 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term utility jobs. These 

jobs would be distributed nationwide in proportion to the number of coal-fired units that need upgrades. 

The EPA, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and DOE will work with entities whose 

responsibility is to ensure an affordable, reliable supply of electricity, including State Utility 

Commissions, Regional Transmission Organizations, and the National Electric Reliability Council to 

share information and encourage them to begin planning for compliante and reliability as early as 

possible. This will ensure orderly, affordable compliance with the proposed standards. Energy efficiency 

investments that achieve moderate levels of energy demand reduction in compliance strategies can also 

cut substantially total emissions control costs for the power sector. 

With regard to the issue of the 3-year compliance period, the Clean Air Act gives existing units three 

years to comply. State and local permitting authorities (rather than the EPA) are allowed, under certain 

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circumstances, to provide for an additional year and the EPA will support this pennitting authority 

flexibility where appropriate. 

Again, thank you for your letter. I appreciate the opportunity to be of service and trust the infonnation 

provided is helpful. 

c.erely, 

/ 

Gina 

~ McCarthy 

Assistant Administrator