Supreme Court Will Hear Pollution Case (Coal power plants)

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-scotus/2006/may/15/051503022.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider a landmark air pollution case that tests a Clinton administration strategy of using courts to pursue coal-burning power companies.

Justices next fall will take up a lower court decision that said power plants do not have to get permission to release more pollutants into the air when they modernize to operate for longer hours.

The Bush administration opposed the decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but in an odd move asked justices not to overturn it.

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Duke Energy Corp., based in Charlotte, N.C., was sued over improvements made at eight power plants in North Carolina and South Carolina. The appeals court said that although the plants would operate more hours and pollute more each year, the hourly rate of emissions wouldn't increase.

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[jpak]

1. More details...

High Court Weighs Forced Pollution Control

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-scotus/2006/may/15/051503724.html

<snip>

The closely watched case will test the Bush and Clinton administrations' competing legal approaches for cutting air pollution. Federal appeals courts have issued contradictory rulings on the issue.

The case involves the Bush administration's attempts in 2002 and 2003 to rewrite the Environmental Protection Agency's "new source review" regulations under 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act.

Those regulations said that older industrial facilities - such as aging coal-fired power plants, refineries, smelters, and chemical and manufacturing plants - must install state-of-the-art equipment if they expand or modernize in a way that results in significantly more air pollution.

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Regulators, industry groups and environmentalists have their eyes on how the case will affect 600 aging coal-fired power plants, mainly in the East and Midwest, that are among the biggest sources of air pollution.

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[rfkrfk]

2. why does everyone speak in riddles?

I'm getting tired of the intentional confusion and secrecy.

How is the basic limit on pollution for these
old plants, written in law?

sulfur limit by percentage, in the coal?
nitrogen-compound limit, per megawatt-hour?
something similiar, for mercury?

wanting to operate 14 hours a day, instead of ten,
and, at the same time,
wvnting a building permit for a bigger coal yard,
is not 'moderize'.