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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - For SC email list T-and-C, send: GET TERMS-AND-CONDITIONS.CURRENT to [log in to unmask]