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32 Coal-Fired Power Plants in 13 States Now Up in the Air After Major Court Ruling on Mercury

MI, WY, IL, NV, OH, PA, TX, IA, KY, LA, GA, NM and NC Are States With Largest Number of At-

Risk Dirty Power Plants; At Stake: Health of Hundreds of Thousands of U.S. Children.

been shaken up in the wake of a February 8, 2008 federal appeals court ruling that requires each new coalfired

power plant in the U.S. to adopt stringent toxic air pollution control measures meeting the most

rigorous standards under the Clean Air Act, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council

(NRDC).

The states identified with the most coal-fired power plants now up in the air are: Michigan

(four), Wyoming (four), Illinois (three), Nevada (three), Ohio (three), Pennsylvania (three), Texas (three),

Iowa (two), Kentucky (two), Louisiana (two), Georgia (one), New Mexico (one) and North Carolina

(one).

The ruling will impact various aspects of three dozen or more coal-fired power plants, including some

now already under construction.

Major coal-fired power plants impacted by the ruling include: LS Power White Pine (1500 MW - permit

pending in Nevada); Sierra Ely (1500 MW - permit pending in Nevada); Toquop (850 MW - permit

pending in Nevada) Desert Rock (Sithe Global’s 1500 MW in New Mexico); Longleaf ( LS Power’s 1200

MW Plant in Georgia); Cliffside (Duke Energy’s 800 MW Plant in North Carolina); Alliant Marshalltown

(600 MW – permit pending in Iowa); LS Power Waterloo (750 MW – permit pending in Iowa); AMP

(1000 MW – permit challenged in Ohio); LS Power/Dynegy (750 MW in Michigan). For a complete list

of all 32 plants, go to http://www.nrdc.org.

Natural Resources Defense Council Clean Air Director/Senior Attorney John Walke said: “The February

and pollution controls. This important new legal tool will increase the pollution control obligations for

new coal-fired power plants, raise the already considerable expense of these projects, and add to the

weight of arguments that the public deploys to oppose conventional coal-fired plants.”

Dr. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist, NRDC Public Health Program, said: "We need to remind that this is

not just some fight in a court room. It also goes to the heart of a major public health crisis. Failing to clean

up mercury pollution sentences our children to a life of lost opportunities. Mt. Sinai researchers have used

data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and studies that link elevated mercury

levels with IQ loss to estimate that 300,000-600,000 children each year are born with mercury in their

blood at levels associated with a loss of IQ. The Mt. Sinai study limited its calculations to the costs

associated with loss of intelligence only. There also are data from Europe suggesting that mercury

poisoning is associated with increases in deaths from heart disease, which is the top killer in the United

States."

(overturned) two EPA mercury rules covering coal- and oil-fired power plants. Under the court ruling,

power plants will need to install pollution control equipment to control not just mercury emissions but

arsenic, lead, chromium and all other air toxics emitted from coal-burning. This legal tool will require a

new and additional evaluation of pollution limits and control technologies covering all air toxics emitted

by power plants, and will increase the pollution control obligations for new coal-fired power plants.

In 2005, EPA issued two highly controversial regulations covering just mercury emissions from coal-fired

power plants: (1) a rule that removed such power plants from the list of industries requiring the Clean Air

Act’s rigorous “Maximum Achievable Control Technology” (MACT) standards for each electric

generation unit in the country to sharply reduce its toxic air pollution; and (2) a regulation that substituted

a mercury pollution trading regime, which greatly weakened required mercury cuts from power plants,

dispensed with the need to reduce mercury from each electric generation unit in the country, and walked

away from regulating all other forms of toxic air pollution from power plants. EPA’s mercury pollution

trading rule also stretched out full compliance with the trading scheme until the mid-2020’s, rather than

requiring full compliance with more protective MACT standards by no later than 2008.

Before EPA illegally removed power plants from the regulatory list requiring adoption of MACT

standards, each new coal-fired power plants proposed for construction starting in 2001 was required to be

controlled to levels no less stringent than MACT, established by permitting authorities in the plant’s

preconstruction permit. Several states issued preconstruction permits for new coal-fired power plants

between 2001 and 2005 containing mercury emissions limitations that were far more stringent than the

weak mercury limits that EPA’s 2005 mercury rule applied to new coal-fired power plants: EPA’s trading

rule allowed anywhere from 4 to 20 times more mercury from new coal-fired power plants than these

state permit mercury limits. The court’s ruling makes clear that power plants remain on the regulatory list

requiring adoption of stringent MACT standards and pollution controls for all new coal-fired power

plants.

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