Clean Air in the News

Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. - Attorney General Roy Cooper asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to reconsider its refusal to hold 13 neighboring states to tighter pollutant emission standards, and also sought a court review of the decision.

A collection of environmental groups joined Cooper's effort, filing a similar review request with a federal appeals court in Washington.

The state petitioned the EPA in March 2004, seeking to force cleanup of older, coal-fired power plants in states that North Carolina blamed for contributing to its clean air problems. The petition came under a "good neighbor" provision of the Clean Air Act that allows the EPA to rule that power plants in other states are keeping a state from reaching clean air standards.

The EPA denied the request in March, saying existing rules will help achieve the emission reductions sought by North Carolina.

Cooper filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on Monday, asking it to review the decision. On Tuesday, he asked the EPA itself to reconsider.

"In North Carolina, we've taken steps to clean up our own pollution but dirty air doesn't obey state lines," he said in a statement. "I'm continuing this fight against out-of-state pollution to protect North Carolina's people, our environment and our economy."

The Southern Environmental Law Center, based in Raleigh, and the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force announced Tuesday that they, too, asked the appeals court to review the EPA ruling.

The appeal was filed on behalf of the Sierra Club's North Carolina chapter and Environment North Carolina.

Marily Nixon, director of the law center's Healthy Air Project, said pollution from other states' power plants has caused unhealthy levels of soot and smog in 32 North Carolina counties.

"The federal Clean Air Act says that EPA has a duty to protect citizens of these counties by requiring the offending polluters to clean up. Instead, EPA chose to delay and deny its responsibility, sacrificing public health in the process," she said.

In 2002, North Carolina passed tough clean air legislation that required in-state power plants to make actual cuts in pollution-causing emissions, rather than trading emissions credits to keep older, dirtier plants in operation. The change forced the state's two major utilities, Duke Power and Progress Energy, to upgrade existing power plants.

Since then, Cooper has been increasingly vocal about the need for other states to match North Carolina's efforts.

He filed a separate lawsuit in January against the Tennessee Valley Authority, accusing the nation's largest federal utility of causing a "public nuisance" in North Carolina by failing to reduce coal-fired pollution. That case is pending in U.S. District Court in Asheville.

The EPA's decision in March said the agency believes the Clean Air Interstate Rule, issued one year earlier, eventually will achieve the results sought by North Carolina. That rule requires 28 states and the District of Columbia to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from power plants by 2015.

According to EPA, once the rule is fully implemented, sulfur dioxide emissions in the eastern states will be reduced by more than 70 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions will go down by more than 60 percent from 2003 levels.

The Southern Environmental Law Center and other critics said the plan will allow polluters to trade credits and continue operating dirty plants for longer than they should, including some near North Carolina's borders.