NC's 126 Petition: Curbing pollution in 14 states
SELC sues EPA for failing to protect North Carolina from upwind pollution
©Charles Shoffner
Nearly 2,000 people in North Carolina die each year due to exposure to power plant pollution, the ninth highest rate in the country. Soot composed of microscopic particles from power plants also causes over 1,000 hospitalizations and 27,418 asthma attacks every year, 1,338 severe enough to require emergency room visits
Despite having one of the strongest state air pollution laws in the country, over one-third of counties in North Carolina still do not meet federal clean air standards for ozone or soot due in part to pollution crossing its borders from 13 neighboring states.
Regardless, in March 2006, EPA denied a request by North Carolina for the agency to force the clean up of pollution from these neighboring states. Instead, EPA issued a plan to substitute implementation of the weaker federal Clean Air Interstate Rule(CAIR) to remedy the state's air pollution problems.
Now a federal court has struck down CAIR, leaving EPA little to hide behind to clean up the state's 32 counties with unhealthy air. EPA and North Carolina have until mid-August, 2008 to tell the court how the court's decision on CAIR will impact the state's request.
The "good neighbor" provision in Section 126 of the Clean Air Act allows a state to petition EPA for a finding that power plants in upwind states are impeding its ability to attain air quality standards. North Carolina filed a "Section 126" petition seeking to compel the EPA to force cleanups at older coal-fired power plants in thirteen upwind states.
EPA's March, 2006 denial of the "Section 126 Petition came after years of EPA delay in which the agency didn't respond at all to the state's petition. SELC and the State of North Carolina sued the agency for its inaction, which prompted EPA to finally take action. Its ultimate denial of the petition came two years after the state's original request.
In its place, EPA issued CAIR, a plan that requires 28 Eastern states to clean up power plant emissions by 2015 using a cap-and-trade scheme. However, CAIR allows dirty plants to continue to operate too long before cutting their pollution, and because CAIR allows plants to trade pollution credits, plants that are polluting North Carolina's air can avoid emissions reductions by purchasing credits. Furthermore, by concentrating only on the state's soot problem, EPA's plan ignores the contribution neighboring states make to North Carolina's smog.
North Carolina is the first southern state to file a “126 petition,” a tool that has been successfully used in the past by northern states to force midwestern and southern states to curb ozone-forming emissions. According to EPA’s own analysis of pollution transport, North Carolina’s petition would eliminate 75 percent of the sulfur dioxide and nearly 70 percent of the nitrogen oxides annually from coal-burning power plants operating in the upwind states. This equates to roughly half of all sulfur dioxide pollution in the U.S.
