News

Maryland sues EPA over Clean Air Act

BY SOFIA KOSMETATOS
Capital News Service

On October 27, Maryland joined the District of Columbia, New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, and more than 20 cities and towns in a suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over proposed changes to the New Source Review program under the Clean Air Act.

"We will take whatever steps necessary to protect the health of our citizens and the Chesapeake Bay," Maryland Attorney General Joseph Curran said in a statement. The rule announced by the EPA is a step in the wrong direction."

Maryland, like many states in the suit, is downwind of hundreds of the oldest and dirtiest power plants in the nation, many of which are in the Midwest.

But supporters of the New Source Review changes say that the new regulations will make the situation better, not worse, by making it less burdensome for power plant operators to make routine repairs. They said the changes are meant to help plants run efficiently.

"EPA does not believe that this rule will result in any significant changes in emissions," said John Millett, a spokesperson for the agency.

When the Clean Air Act took effect in the 1970s, power plants operating at the time were temporarily exempted from its requirements. Those "grandfathered" plants were required to come up to modern emissions standards, however, when they upgraded their equipment.

But the EPA, in regulations published in October and taking effect in December, proposed that routine maintenance of equipment be exempt from such upgrades. Under the new standards, the upgrades would only be required if the repairs to the equipment cost more than 20 percent of the total cost of its replacement.

The EPA would still require that the replacement parts be "functionally equivalent" to existing parts and that there be "no change to basic design or emitting capacity" as a result of the repairs.

But critics fear that grandfathered power plants will exploit the new rule, making upgrades every year that are just under the 20 percent limit. That will allow them "to expand their operation and extend their life cycle...and never be at the standard new plants are," said Gillian Ream of Maryland Public Interest Research Group.

MaryPIRG, citing the USPIRG report, said the changes would mean 7.1 millions of tons of sulfur dioxide and 2.7 millions of tons of nitrogen dioxide nationwide will continue to "go unchecked" into the atmosphere, based on 2002 emissions from the dirtiest plants.

MaryPIRG said Maryland is a "leading producer" of these emissions: The state's 10 dirtiest power plants emit 255,000 tons of sulfur dioxide annually, a figure that the report estimates could be reduced 81 percent if modern pollution controls were installed.