Clean Air News

Washington, DC – In a case against Duke Energy, the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 today that industrial smokestacks and power plants must meet today's cost-effective pollution control standards when facilities are refurbished. 

“The court’s decision could lead to a major reduction of over one million tons of health-threatening pollution across the country,” said Elizabeth Ouzts, state director of Environment North Carolina, one of the petitioners in the case.

At stake are emissions of soot- and smog-forming pollutants from smokestacks.  Fine soot particles penetrate deep into the human lung when inhaled, contributing to respiratory disease, heart attacks, and even early death.  Smog, or ozone, triggers asthma attacks and causes long-term lung damage. 

“Slashing emissions from smokestacks across the region would bring much-needed relief to North Carolina, where air pollution continues to trigger asthma attacks, missed school days, and even early death,” continued Ouzts.

The plaintiffs in the case argued that Duke Energy violated the New Source Review provision of the nation’s Clean Air Act between 1988 and 2000, when it spent hundreds of millions of dollars upgrading eight coal-fired power plants in North and South Carolina without installing the modern pollution controls the law required.

Similar suits are pending against the nation's largest utilities, targeting plants in the South and Midwest.  According to government data, the units subject to enforcement suits emitted over 1.6 million tons of soot-forming sulfur dioxide and over 300,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxide in 2005. 

The case against Duke Energy was the only case to reach the Supreme Court.  The court’s remand of the fourth-circuit decision could impact similar suits across the country, as well as the embattled New Source Review program itself, which applies to some 17,000 power plants and other industrial facilities across the country. 

In another critical environmental decision, the Supreme Court also ruled today that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulated global warming pollution from automobiles.  Click here for the news release on the Supreme Court's decision on global warming.

###