Carolina Blue Skies, Still Blue

In a decision late yesterday on a challenge brought by the Southern Environmental Law Center, its clients [including the Sierra Club] and the state under the Clean Air Act, a federal appeals court rejected the basis for the Environmental Protection Agency’s denial of relief to North Carolina from upwind sources of pollution that significantly contribute to the state’s air quality problems.

The federal agency must now act quickly to require reductions in fine particle and ozone pollution from the offending upwind sources. More than 1,000 people in North Carolina die each year due to exposure to power plant pollution-- the ninth highest rate in the country. Hundreds of thousands more suffer related asthma attacks and other respiratory problems, including about 170,000 children.

This is another important benchmark in North Carolina’s campaign to force coal-fired power plants in other states to clean up pollution that harms the health of our citizens. You can read the SELC press release here.

North Carolina vs TVA

From the Charlotte Observer:

A 2002 N.C. law forced utilities to clean up their emissions that the state says hurt public health. The law also directed the state attorney general to take action against out-of-state utilities, including massive TVA, whose pollutants blow into North Carolina.

Attorney General Roy Cooper filed suit in 2006, saying TVA wouldn't agree to a firm timetable to reduce emissions. TVA says it has little effect on North Carolina but has spent billions to clean up its plants.

The case opens today in Ashville; being a case that crosses state lines, it will be decided in federal court and has far reaching consequences for utilities related conflict across the country.

Cooper wants TVA to install pollution controls similar to those North Carolina required of Duke Energy and Progress Energy in 2002. The estimated cost to TVA: $516 million a year.