The Midwest Regional Conservation Committee ( MRCC) will be holding a
meeting in March 16 - 17th in Chicago on the topic of Coal Power Plants.
The MRCC holds three meetings a year in the midwest. The second meeting
will be in June in LaCross, WI and the topic will be the Mississippi
River.

Here is an editorial about one of the issues associated with coal power
plants.

Don't Foul the Air
Washington Post
Wednesday, January 2, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49720-2002Jan1.html

ABOUT A YEAR ago the Environmental Protection Agency announced a pair of

substantial settlement agreements aimed at reducing pollution from
coal-fired power plants. The agreements in principle called for
significant
emissions reductions from 18 plants as well millions in fines for
violating
a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires industry to install
up-to-date pollution controls when old plants are significantly
upgraded.
But then last spring the president's energy plan called for a review of
the
way government was enforcing that provision, known as New Source Review.

With the prospect of change in the air, the talks to finalize the
agreements have dragged out: Neither has yet been translated into a
enforceable order. Now decisions about possible changes to the new
source
review program are reported to be near: Options under consideration are
said to include guidelines that could allow plants to increase emissions

under some conditions without being required to install new pollution
controls. Officials
 ought to reject any such choices.

This provision of the Clean Air Act was the result of a straightforward
compromise. Plants built after the act was passed would be required to
include state-of-the-art pollution controls. Older plants would not be
forced to go back and install the costly equipment unless the facilities

were upgraded and modernized. The expectation was that older plants
would
eventually be retired or would acquire new controls as their life was
extended. But after an enforcement crackdown in the late 1990s, EPA
filed
suit against eight utilities and an administrative action against the
Tennessee Valley Authority, contending that many older coal-fired power
plants had been significantly upgraded under the guise of routine
maintenance, without new efforts to reduce their pollution. A number of
states affected by wind-borne pollution joined in the cases. It was
those
suits that led to last year's settlement agreements; litigation
continues
on the cases that have not been settled, but the review of federal
policy
casts a shadow over them as well.

Utilities have lobbied hard for relief from new source review, claiming
that EPA has changed the rules along the way and that they have been
frightened away from making even the most minor changes to plants,
including changes that could increase energy production. The stakes here

are not small. They involve hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants
with real consequences for public health, and they affect air quality
across a wide swath of the country. Congress was right when it sought to

put older plants on a track to cut emissions over time. President Bush
ought to reject any proposals that would change that course.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

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