EPA Staff Mulls Lawsuits Vs 22 Utilities - EPA List
Date: 16-Jul-04
Country: USA
Author: Chris Baltimore
The EPA has forwarded 14 cases to the U.S. Justice Department, and could send another eight cases within 30 days, the list said.
The Justice Department has not yet committed to pursue the cases, many of which have likely sat idle since 2001, when the Clinton-era department finished filing cases against nine utilities for violating the Clean Air Act. Many of the original cases are still unresolved.
Emissions from older coal-fired power plants can aggravate asthma, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia.
The list provides a previously undisclosed snapshot of pending, unfiled EPA actions against U.S. utilities. The list was first reported by Greenwire, an on-line industry newsletter, this week
EPA has referred 14 cases involving some of the biggest U.S. utilities to the U.S. Justice Department, according to the list. The company-specific cases involve units of Progress Energy Inc., DPL Inc., Southern Co. and federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority, among others.
The Justice Department has not filed the cases in court, but the action indicates EPA enforcement staff's intent to pursue the cases.
An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment on active investigations, but said the agency is committed to reducing power plant emissions.
The EPA enforcement staff, headed by Tom Skinner, could refer cases against another eight utilities within 30 days to the Justice Department pending approval from Skinner or EPA administrator Mike Leavitt, according to the EPA document.
Those utilities include units of CMS Energy Corp., NiSource Inc. and Westar Energy Inc., the list said.
Environmentalists criticized the Bush administration for failing to date to take action on the EPA staff recommendations.
"This is a source of embarrassment for the Bush administration," said John Walke, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "It paints a stark picture of their refusal to enforce the law."
The Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a lobbying group that represents many utilities named on the list, said the EPA should adopt proposed cap-and-trade rules rather than deal with utility violations separately.
A cap-and-trade system would let utilities buy or sell plant-specific allowances to emit pollutants, which would assure overall limits were met while giving individual plants more leeway.
"A case-by-case approach is more costly and less effective in reducing emissions," said Frank Maisano at the group. "A cap-and-trade approach would get reductions from all sites rather than this notoriously slow lawsuit-driven approach."
