by guest contributor David Bookbinder, Chief Climate Counsel for Sierra Club. The views expressed here are his own.

Rule #1 when you’re in a hole is to stop digging.  And in the climate hole we’ve dug for ourselves, that means not building any more coal-fired power plants, the leading source of CO2 emissions both in the U.S. and worldwide.  And, thanks to the Bonanza decision last week from EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board, we appear to have done just that.  (And maybe a little bit more.)

Hallelujah.

Technically, all EAB did was vacate the PSD permit for a relatively small (110 megawatt) proposed power plant and send it back to the permit writers for further consideration.  But that would be kind of like saying that Marbury v. Madison was all about whether William Marbury got to be a D.C. justice of the peace.  That is because the exact same rationale EPA used in refusing to impose CO2 emission limits on the Bonanza plant has been used by EPA and state permitting authorities in virtually every one of the dozens of other coal-rush PSD permits we’re challenging across the country.  And by rejecting (eviscerating is more like it) this rationale, every one of those other permits faces the same fate: remand for the agencies to try and come up with a more plausible excuse for not imposing CO2 limits, or, better still, take a different position.

Which will take months.  Many months.  Perhaps up to a year or two.  For all of them.  Which means we have a de facto moratorium on building new coal-fired generation.  And the timing could not be better, because it gives the Obama Administration both a blank slate to write on and plenty of breathing room as they will not have to be rushing around from Day 1 reacting to individual permit decisions.  (To preserve this hiatus, the Lords of Transition would be advised to make it very, very clear that any new state-issued PSD permit coming out either before or after January 20 will be vacated by EPA using its authority under Section 167 of the Clean Air Act.)

So what next?  Logically, I think the answer is New Source Performance Standards for fossil-fuel fired power plants.  Just such a rulemaking is sitting in limbo at EPA and it is the appropriate vehicle for limiting new power plant emissions to 800 lb. CO2/MWh.  This would permit new gas-fired plants but would effectively stop any new coal-fired ones that did not employ carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”).  Perhaps this rulemaking could also contain a second phase, effective 2016 or so, tightening the standard to approximately 250 lb. CO2/MWh.  This would be achievable via either combined gas/solar or gas/wind generation or 90% CCS.  And then they could start thinking about how to deal with existing power plants under Section 111(d) of the Act.  But one thing at a time.

Right now we have a de facto moratorium on new coal-fired power plants, a blank slate on which the Obama Administration can begin writing its global warming policy and some breathing room in which to write it.  Captain Climate says check it out.

(See also, Part I.)