Because of the abundance of coal and its historically low cost, coal-fueled electricity generating units provide a large share of the electricity produced in the United States. In 2012, according to Energy Information Administration (EIA) data, there were 1,309 coal-fueled generating units in the United States, with a total of 309,680 megawatts (MW) of net summer generating capacity—about 29 percent of the total net summer generating capacity in the United States.produced by using other fossil fuels, particularly natural gas and oil; nuclear power; and renewable sources, including hydropower, wind, geothermal, and solar. Historically, coal-fueled generating units have provided about half of the electricity produced in the United States—an amount that has declined in recent years, falling to 37 percent in 2012. In addition to coal, electricity is To address concerns over air pollution, water resources, and solid waste, several environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, were enacted. As required or authorized by these laws, EPA recently proposed or finalized four key regulations that will affect coal-fueled units. As outlined in table 1, these regulations are at different stages of development and have different compliance deadlines. These four regulations have potentially significant implications for public health and the environment. In particular, EPA projected that, among other benefits, CSAPR would reduce SO emissions by over half in covered states, reducing asthma and related human health impacts. In addition, EPA projected that MATS would reduce mercury emissions by 75 percent from coal-fueled electricity generating units, reducing the impacts of mercury on adults and children. In addition to these four regulations, on June 2, 2014, EPA proposed new regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil-fueled generating units that, if finalized, will impact the electricity industry, including coal-fueled generating units, aiming for overall reductions equivalent to 30 percent from 2005 emissions levels by 2030. The proposed regulations include state-specific goals for carbon dioxide emissions and guidelines for states to follow in developing, submitting, and implementing plans to achieve these goals, which would be due in June 2016, although, under some circumstances, a state may submit an initial plan by June 2016 and a completed plan up to 2 years later. In addition to DOE, FERC, and EPA, other key stakeholders have certain responsibilities for overseeing actions power companies take in response to the regulations and have a role in mitigating some potential adverse implications. These other stakeholders include state environmental and electricity regulators and system planners that coordinate planning decisions regarding transmission and generation infrastructure to maintain the reliable supply of electricity to consumers. System planners and operators attempt to avoid reliability problems through advance planning of transmission and, in some cases, generation resources, and coordinating or determining operational decisions such as which generating resources are operated to meet demand throughout the day. The role of a system planner can be carried out by individual power companies or RTOs. System planners’ responsibilities include analyzing expected future changes in generation and transmission assets, such as the retirement of a generating unit; customer demand; and emerging reliability issues. For example, once a power company notifies the system planner that it is considering retiring a generating unit, the system planner generally studies the electricity system to assess whether the retirement would cause reliability challenges and identify long- or short-term solutions to mitigate any impacts. The solutions could include building new generating units, reducing demand in specific areas, building new transmission lines or adding other equipment. DOE, EPA, and FERC have taken initial steps to implement the recommendation we made in our July 2012 report that these agencies develop and document a formal, joint process to monitor industry progress in responding to the four EPA regulations. Since that time, DOE, EPA, and FERC have taken initial steps collectively and individually to monitor industry progress responding to EPA regulations including jointly conducting regular meetings with key industry stakeholders. However, recent and pending actions on the four existing regulations, as well as EPA’s recently proposed regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing generating units may require additional monitoring efforts, according to DOE, EPA, and FERC officials. DOE, EPA, and FERC have taken initial steps to implement the recommendation we made in our July 2012 report. In that report we found the agencies had undertaken individual monitoring efforts of varied scale and scope and engaged in informal coordination, but lacked a formal documented process for routinely monitoring industry progress toward compliance with the regulations. As such, we recommended that these agencies develop and document a formal, joint process to monitor industry progress in responding to EPA regulations. We concluded that such a process was needed until at least 2017 to monitor the complexity of implementation and extent of potential effects on price and reliability. Since that time, DOE, EPA, and FERC have taken initial steps collectively to monitor industry progress responding to EPA regulations including jointly conducting regular meetings with key industry stakeholders. Currently, these monitoring efforts are primarily focused on industry implementation in regions with a large amount of capacity that must comply with the MATS regulation—the only one of the four regulations that has taken effect. According to EPA officials, DOE, EPA, and FERC officials have met three times since our July 2012 report to coordinate the efforts under way at each agency to monitor industry’s progress implementing the MATS regulation and other related issues, including EPA’s development of recently proposed regulations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing generating units. In addition, in May 2013, staff from DOE, EPA, and FERC jointly developed a coordination memorandum that was intended to identify how the agencies would work together to address the potential effects of EPA’s regulations on reliability. According to one EPA official, the memorandum was intended to be an evolving document that the agencies would revisit as appropriate, for example, as additional EPA regulations are finalized. These four RTOs include PJM Interconnection, which serves all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia; Midcontinent ISO, which serves parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin, as well as the Canadian province of Manitoba; the Southwest Power Pool, which serves parts of Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas; and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which serves parts of Texas. control equipment in use and retrofit plans, and other information such as reliability assessments under way in the region. As part of these meetings, officials told us that the RTOs provided information of varying levels of detail to the agencies, including information on retirement notifications and associated impacts as determined by the reliability studies completed by the RTOs; the status and findings of reliability assessments they conduct; data on the generating capacity of units with planned, announced, or completed retirements and retrofits; and data on planned outages. RTO officials told us they each gathered information about the plans for generating units in the areas they oversee. Officials from several RTOs told us that they gathered this information by surveying owners of generating units to identify, among other things, information on decisions related to retiring or retrofitting specific generating units. According to EPA officials, the agencies’ monitoring and technical assistance efforts are primarily focused on implementation of the MATS requirements because it has taken effect and includes requirements that must be achieved within well-defined time frames. The MATS regulation was finalized in February 2012 and calls for a 3-year compliance period for existing generating units with the deadline of April 16, 2015, but permitting authorities may provide an extra year for certain generating units that request additional time to comply. Agency officials and stakeholders told us that state agencies are generally providing the 1- year extension for generating units—providing these units a total of 4 years to comply. In addition, according to the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), as of May 2014, all but 9 of over 100 requests for extensions were granted by the state permitting agencies. In addition to the MATS extension, EPA also provided a mechanism to allow certain units—generating units that are needed to address specific and documented reliability concerns—to request an additional year to come into compliance through the use of Clean Air Act administrative orders—which, if granted, would provide a total of 5 years to comply. According to EPA officials, compliance with the MATS requirements has been less challenging for industry than anticipated, and operators have generally been able to undertake retrofits as part of scheduled maintenance outages; however, certain retrofits, such as the installation of a fabric filter will require additional or longer outages to be completed. According to EPA officials, whether a plant will need to schedule outages for retrofits will depend on a number of factors including the type of controls required for compliance. EPA officials told us they anticipate few administrative orders to be requested. However, if EPA receives a request for an administrative order, EPA has stated in its policy that it will rely on the advice and counsel of reliability experts, including FERC, to identify and analyze reliability risks, but EPA officials will make the final decision on these requests. In May 2012, FERC issued a policy statement detailing how it intends to provide advice to EPA on such requests. In addition to participating in the EPA-facilitated meetings with industry and reviewing information provided from the RTOs through those meetings, DOE, FERC, and EPA have taken other steps to individually monitor or support industry progress implementing EPA regulations. DOE. DOE is offering technical assistance to state public utility commissioners, generating unit owners and operators, and utilities on implementing the new and pending EPA regulations affecting the electric utility industry.