On July 26, a federal appeals court reversed a lower court ruling that required the Tennessee Valley Authority to accelerate plans to install pollution controls at four TVA coal-fired power plants to reduce the amount of pollution blowing into western North Carolina. The lower court ruling was a response to a lawsuit from Attorney General Roy Cooper, who sued TVA under urging from the state's 2002 Clean Smokestacks Law.

Last year, a federal appeals court called for the clean-up of other coal-fired power plants upwind of North Carolina, responding to a challenge from the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Environment North Carolina and the North Carolina Sierra Club.  The court directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require the pollution cuts under a provision of the Clean Air Act. Read the news release.

Read the news release. 

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Pollution from power plants is threatening our health and environment.  Millions of North Carolinians live in areas that fail to meet minimum health standards for smog and soot—pollutants that make people sick, cut lives short, and cause children to miss school.  Pollution from coal-fired power plants is even clouding our rural mountains—diminishing views and making it unhealthy to breathe even atop Mt. Mitchell.

In 2002, backed by Environment North Carolina and a host of others environmental and public health groups, North Carolina adopted the Clean Smokestacks law to slash pollution from power plants.  This new law has made a difference.  Yet power plant pollution throughout the Eastern United States continues to pollute the Tar Heel State.  What’s more, much of this pollution is illegal.

That’s why Environment North Carolina is working to make sure power plants in North Carolina and around the country clean up their pollution and follow the letter of the law.

Represented by our allies at Southern Environmental Law Center, we’ve already prevailed in a case against Duke Energy, who upgraded their plants from 1988 to 2000 without installing the pollution controls required by the nation’s Clean Air Act. 

In 2006, we also joined with our allies to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to clean up illegal pollution throughout the Eastern United States—pollution that continues to threaten public health in North Carolina.  That case is still pending.