EPA Stops Sidestepping and Says NO to New Coal-Based Power Plant

Last year, the Supreme Court made a decision that gave the EPA federal power to regulate CO2 emissions. Last month, the EPA used this power and finally showed America’s energy industry that it means business.

Where once the EPA’s refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants was the norm, now stands an empowered EPA, thanks to the High Courts decision in 2007. The decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, ruled in favor of 12 state plaintiffs that the agency was ignoring its duties under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA will no longer grant permits for projects that don’t adequately consider the alleviation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Even in the nine months since the Supreme Court agreed to hear the first case, Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 05-1120, and accelerating since the elections in November, there has been a growing interest among industry groups in working with environmental organizations on proposals for emissions limits.

The EPA is putting a stop to the development of new coal-based power plants and the future is uncertain for other plants that are already in the development stage.

The ruling was issued by the agency’s appeals panel as it denied a permit to Deseret Power, a regional generation and transmission cooperative whose primary generating resource, the Bonanza Power Plant, is consistently ranked in the top environmentally clean coal fired plants in the U.S.

In April 2004, Deseret Power submitted a Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) permit application to the EPA. The cooperative wanted to build a 110 megawatt coal-burning power plant on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in Utah. Many amendments later, on August 30, 2007, EPA Region 8 (covers the Rocky Mountain region) in Denver, issued the final PSD permit for the new coal-fired power plant. On November 13, 2008, the appeals board overturned the permit and cited the Supreme Court decision giving the EPA federal authority to regulate carbine dioxide. (Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency – pdf)

Court cases around the country had been held up to await the decision in this case. Among them is a challenge to the environmental agency’s refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, now pending in the federal appeals court here. Individual states, led by California, are also moving aggressively into what they have seen as a regulatory vacuum.

Posted on December 9th in Solar News by Beth.