Yesterday’s announcement of new climate change regulations guarantees another marathon debate over the costs and benefits of dramatically reducing our reliance on coal. Unsurprisingly, as the New York Times reports, our state’s governor is on board.

Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington, a liberal who, like Mr. Obama, hopes to make climate policy a signature of his tenure, cheered the rule.

AWB president Kris Johnson takes a sharper look at it.

The proposed changes would devastate the manufacturing industry, one of the country’s leading providers of family-wage jobs, at a time we most need skilled manufacturing workers. And manufacturing is the industry that has been leading us out of the recession. Today’s announcement puts these jobs at risk by creating, in effect, an energy crisis.

Johnson also notes the challenges posed by the EPA’s decision to devolve the regulatory authority to the states.

Walter Russell Mead describes it this way:

Under the new rules, states will be allowed to decide how they accomplish these cuts, but if this rule goes into effect, they’ll need to manage those reductions somehow—with renewables, coal plant scrubbers, nuclear, or shale gas—so that the average amount of carbon power plants emit per megawatt hour generated is 30 percent less in 2030 than it was in 2005.

Mark Muro of The Brookings Institution applauds the state-focused effort, as does Barry Rabe, also with Brookings.

But the Wall Street Journal editorial page isn’t so sure.

Now the agency is taking a “systems-based approach” that usurps state responsibilities in order to move electricity production away first from coal and later natural gas.

The EPA is claiming states can choose whatever methods they like to meet the carbon targets, from shuttering plants to installing more green sources like wind and solar. But beware of the Obama EPA bearing gifts. The agency recently rejected state plans to reduce regional haze before they are even formally proposed and revoked permits it had previously approved.

The cuts and costs vary across state lines, often dramatically. Back to the New York Times story,

The rule calls on a coal-dependent state like Kentucky to cut its plant emissions rate by 19 percent and one like West Virginia by 21 percent, according to an analysis by the Georgetown University Climate Center.

By comparison, the plan calls on Washington State, which has just one coal-fired power plant, and relies on hydroelectric power, to cut its emissions rate 84 percent.

The political faultlines are clear.

Largely welcomed by environmentalists, the plan generated a torrent of criticism from industry, coal-state lawmakers from both parties and Republican leaders who called it a job-killer that would raise utility costs.

Somehow the Times missed significant trade union opposition to the rule. From the United MIne Workers:

Our initial analysis indicates that there will be a loss of 75,000 direct coal generation jobs in the United States by 2020. Those are jobs primarily in coal mines, power plants, and railroads. By 2035, those job losses will more than double to 152,000. That amounts to about a 50 percent cut in these well-paying, highly skilled jobs. When a U.S. government economic multiplier used to calculate the impact of job losses is applied to the entire economy, we estimate that the total impact will be about 485,000 permanent jobs lost.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce published an analysis of the potential economic effects. There’s a lot in the report, but here’s a nugget to consider.

This Energy Institute report provides clear evidence that, even with implementation features designed to keep compliance costs low, regulating CO2emissions at the thousands of existing fossil fuel-fired electricity generating plants in the United States under the CAA [Clean Air Act] leads to nearly a half trillion dollars in total compliance expense, peak GDP losses over $100 billion, hundreds of thousands of lost jobs, higher electricity costs for consumers and businesses, and more than $200 on average every year in lower disposable income for families already struggling with a weak economy.

The NYT notes that the state-by-state scheme resembles the approach taken with the Affordable Care Act, “often with rocky results.” I expect the run up to implementation to be similarly contentious.