EPA Issues Draft Rules On Plants’ Emissions

The Environmental Protection Agency issued draft regulations yesterday that would ease long-standing pollution controls on older, dirtier power plants by judging these plants by the hourly rate of emissions rather than the total annual output.
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…[E]nvironmentalists and some of EPA’s own lawyers said the move will undermine one of the agency’s most effective means of forcing aging utilities to install new anti-pollution technology when they expand or modernize. Under the current law, a plant must put in new controls if a modification increases its annual emissions; the new rules would require such controls only if the hourly emissions increase. Under the new scenario, a plant could legally emit more pollution if it operated for longer hours.

“Whatever shell of New Source Review remained, it’s now being completely eviscerated,” said John Stanton, a senior attorney at the advocacy group Clear the Air.

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