Four Corners Power Plant – keeping Southern California happy

Environmentalists said that the coal industry was reeling following a ruling by the Environmental Appeals Board, an independent body of adjudicators within the Environmental Protection Agency.

The decision — which responded to a Sierra Club petition to review an E.P.A. permit granted to a coal plant in Utah — does not require the E.P.A. to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, something which environmentalists have long sought.

Rather, it requires the agency’s regional office to at least consider whether to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, before the agency gives a green light to build the Utah plant. On a broader scale, it will delay the building of coal-fired power plants across the country, long enough for the Obama administration to determine its policy on coal, according to David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club.

“They’re sending this permit — and effectively sending every other permit — back to square one,” he said, adding, “It’s minimum a one to two year delay for every proposed coal-fired power plant in the United States.”

The decision references the landmark Massachusetts v. E.P.A. decision last year that declared carbon dioxide a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. That ruling, however, has not yet prompted the E.P.A. to act to regulate it.

Through the past eight years of know-nothing and do-less administration, whether the issue is the environment, war, education or the economy, the E.P.A. has fallen in line with our government’s reluctance to place public good ahead of corporate profits.

BTW – the dumbest headline of the week came from the AP which said, “Coal plants jeopardized over climate“. Never occurred to them the climate might be jeopardized by coal plants?