President Obama’s new carbon emission rules for power plants are an overreach according to Georgia Power and it’s parent company, Southern Company.

In a four paragraph response to the long awaited rules changes, company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins said the rules are a burden to citizens.

"EPA's original proposal offered insufficient flexibility to states, failed to consider the costly impact on hardworking American families and attempted to regulate the production, distribution and consumption of energy by our customers in a manner that exceeds EPA’s authority," Hawkins said.

Under the new rules, power plants would have 15 years to reduce their carbon emissions by about a third from 2005 levels. Georgia Power says its emissions levels today are already about 20 percent lower than 2005 levels. Last year, the cost to customers for the company’s environmental compliance efforts was about 8 dollars a month.

Tags: Grant Blankenship, Georgia Power, electricity, carbon dioxide, co2, EPA