Great Progress Has Been Made With More to Come
One of the great untold environmental stories is how air quality has improved dramatically over the past 30 years. In its annual Report on the Environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has documented the air quality improvements that have taken place since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970. In the last 35 years, total national emissions of the six most common air pollutants have been significantly reduced, including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. Amazingly, this improvement in national air quality has occurred while the economy has grown dramatically. The U.S. electric power industry, including cooperatives, has reduced air emissions substantially during this time. We have achieved these dramatic reductions using advanced pollution control technologies, building cleaner and more efficient new plants, and using cleaner-burning fuels.
The EPA has issued new rules that will require further reductions in emissions of key pollutants from power plants. These regulations will require 70% reductions of pollutants like nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and mercury over the next decade, resulting in even cleaner air. As a result of these requirements, EPA projects most counties in the U.S. will meet Clean Air Act standards by 2015.
Sensible multi-emission legislation can reduce power plant emissions more quickly and economically than continued regulation under current law. NRECA believes Congress should enact legislation that will address these objectives while balancing America’s energy, environmental and economic needs.
Current proposals to reduce mercury emissions from power plants are often in the news. The “Frequently Asked Questions” document below is intended to provide some basic information about mercury, its sources, its impacts, and our ability to reduce emissions from power plants.
EPA Regulations - Clean Air Interstate Rule, Clean Air Mercury Rule, and Regional Haze: EPA has recently issued regulations requiring reductions of emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and mercury from power plants. Read NRECA’s public comments on these proposals below.
Documents:
Environmental Defense V. Duke Energy: How a Supreme Court Reversal on the Interpretation of New Source Review Could Imperil Rural America
Economists from the Center for Economic Development and Research forecast dire economic repressions for rural economies should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn a 2005 court of appeals decision favoring Duke Energy.
Type: Report Date: 2006-10-24 Size: 1037KB- Brief of APPA & NRECA in Support of Respondent Duke Energy
In a brief filed September 15th before the U.S. Supreme Court, America’s cooperative and municipal electric utilities, voiced support for a 2005 court of appeals decision favoring Duke Energy, and argued that federal enforcement of New Source Review (NSR) regulations does not comport with Congressional intent under the Clean Air Act.
Type: Filing Date: 2006-09-15 Size: 158KB 
Comments On Proposed Rule National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter
NRECA believes that EPA’s science supporting its proposal is questionable, and the costs to implement the rule for the public are high. Instead, EPA should allow states to implement the existing standard, which they must meet by 2010, before moving the regulatory goal posts yet again.
Type: Filing Date: 2006-05-08 Size: 82KB- Comments on Regional Haze Regulations and Guidelines for Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) Determinations; Proposed Rule
NRECA believes that, in the proposed BART rule, EPA has limited the states’ primary role in the BART process through various mandates, defaults and presumptions, which, by their sheer volume and cumulative effect in the proposal, crowd out the recognition of state authority.
Type: Letter Date: 2005-12-02 Size: 62KB - Comments on Proposed Rule To Reduce Interstate Transport of Fine Particulate Matter and Ozone (Interstate Air Quality Rule -IAQR)
NRECA stresses that the proposal’s Phase I deadline of 2010 is too short to allow cooperatives to install highly cost-effective emissions controls. Also, EPA has provided no technical basis for including virtually all states it has identified as “significant contributors” in Phase I, as those requiring additional Phase II reductions.
Type: Letter Date: 2005-12-02 Size: 164KB - Comments on Proposed National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants; and, in the Alternative, Proposed Standards of Performance for New and Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Steam Generating Units; Proposed Rule
NRECA asserts that EPA has not demonstrated that regulation of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants is appropriate and necessary, and it will take many years to bring all such plants into compliance – certainly beyond the agency’s proposed deadlines for compliance. If EPA proceeds with the rule, NRECA supports the proposed cap-and –trade approach.
Type: Letter Date: 2005-12-02 Size: 404KB - Mercury FAQs
This document provides basic information about mercury, its sources, its impacts and our ability to reduce emissions from power plants.
Type: Q and A Date: 2005-12-02 Size: 647KB