U.S.: Coal Power Hitting Roadblocks

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47920

U.S.: Coal Power Hitting Roadblocks

Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA, Jul 31 (IPS) - As more and more states are turning against coal power facilities in the U.S., advocates have been using the legal system to halt new pending plants.

In Georgia, a major case is testing the implications of the 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

Two subsequent rulings by a Fulton County Superior Court Judge and the Court of Appeals in Georgia have so far each held up a new plant, Longleaf Energy Station, sought in Georgia's Early County by LS Power of New Jersey.

If approved, the plant would be the first new coal power plant in Georgia in at least 20 years and one of the only ones opened in the U.S. during the same period, advocates said.

"It would be an anomaly to see this coal plant get built because nationally they're shutting them down and taking them off-line," Erin Glynn, Georgia organiser for the Sierra Club's national Beyond Coal Campaign, told IPS.

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