WASHINGTON—Announcing one of the broadest reforms to the nation’s energy policy in decades, the Environmental Protection Agency introduced sweeping new regulations Monday that will require all power plants to find 30 percent more loopholes by the year 2030. “By setting this strict regulatory standard, we are ensuring that the operators of fossil-fuel power plants take proactive steps to uncover and exploit even more technicalities and exemptions in the federal code in the coming decades,” said EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who pointed to strict loophole quotas that will force electrical utilities to pursue more efficient ways of bypassing rules, prompting a boom in energy sector research into how to take advantage of flexible state-by-state deadlines and ways to grandfather in exemptions for particular coal-burning plants. “The country’s power facilities must adopt a drastic new approach when it comes to how they deftly slide around environmental law. Through utilizing new and inventive means of circumventing the requirements—including innovations in legal maneuvering that tie the new rules up in the courts for years—these polluters will be able to finagle a way to continue releasing carbon dioxide, mercury, and other toxins into the air for the foreseeable future.” McCarthy stated that the EPA’s new regulations would cost the energy industry between $7.3 billion and $8.8 billion annually over the next few years, primarily in political donations to candidates who will ensure the regulations are fully repealed.

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