Statement From NMA’s Rich Nolan On NERC 2023 Summer Reliability Assessment

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Mining Association (NMA) issued the following statement from Rich Nolan, NMA President & CEO, responding to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) 2023 Summer Reliability Assessment which finds that two-thirds of the country is at elevated risk of outages should we see widespread heat weaves this summer. Further, NERC points directly to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Good Neighbor rule as restricting the operation of coal and gas plants in 23 states.

“This assessment is another clear warning that large swaths of the country face the very real threat of blackouts should the weather not cooperate this summer. The nation is increasingly short of the dispatchable capacity it needs to maintain resource adequacy during periods of peak demand. Hoping that the weather cooperates to avoid catastrophic consequences for American families can’t be an acceptable status quo.

As this assessment underscores, EPA’s regulatory blitz is already threatening the reliable delivery of power and undermining efforts to tame energy-driven inflation. The nation is firmly in a grid reliability crisis that will only grow more acute if EPA continues to drive an agenda that forces the closure of the essential generating capacity that underpins grid reliability before reliable alternatives, and their supporting infrastructure, are in place. With rising electricity demand a new reality – driven by electrification – we should be building on the shoulders of our existing coal fleet, not imposing a suite of mandates to tear it down.”