A permit for a new coal-fired power plant in Utah was rejected last week, creating a significant precedent for restricting the development of carbon intensive power plants across the country.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) ruled Thursday evening, the EPA had no valid reason for refusing to limit from new coal-fired power plants the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. The decision means that all new and proposed coal plants nationwide must go back and address their carbon dioxide emissions.
“Today’s decision opens the way for meaningful action to fight global warming and is a major step in bringing about a clean energy economy,” said Joanne Spalding, Sierra Club Senior Attorney who argued the case. “This is one more sign that we must begin repowering, refueling and rebuilding America.”
“The EAB rejected every Bush Administration excuse for failing to regulate the largest source of greenhouse gases in the United States. This decision gives the Obama Administration a clean slate to begin building our clean energy economy for the 21st century,” continued Spalding.
The decision follows a 2007 Supreme Court ruling recognizing carbon dioxide, the principle source of global warming, as a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.
“Coal plants emit 30% of our nation’s global warming pollution. Building new coal plants without controlling their carbon emissions could wipe out all of the other efforts being undertaken by cities, states and communities across the country," said Bruce Nilles, Director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. “Everyone has a role to play and it’s time that the coal industry did its part and started living up to its clean coal rhetoric.”
The Sierra Club went before the Environmental Appeals Board in May of 2008 to request that the air permit for Deseret Power Electric Cooperative’s proposed waste coal-fired power plant be overturned because it failed to require any controls on carbon dioxide pollution. Deseret Power’s 110-megawatts (MW) Bonanza plant would have emitted 3.37 million tons of carbon dioxide each year.
The ruling will delay dozens of coal-fired power plants currently in development, which is significant, as energy companies are hoping to have these built before the U.S. passes carbon-capping legislation, as president-elect Barack Obama has said he will do.
According to Reuters about 25 coal plants are under construction in the U.S. Another 20 projects have been permitted or are near construction and more than 60 have been announced or are in the early stages of development.
Link to background information below.
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