AG Rutledge Files Comments On EPA’s Proposed Regional Haze Plan
by July 16, 2015 7:03 pm 94 views
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said Thursday that her office has submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Arkansas’ proposed Regional Haze plan following rejection of the state’s plan to improve visibility in wilderness areas.
The comments, filed Wednesday, state that the EPA acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner in its decision to require billions of dollars in compliance costs for very limited improvement in visibility.
“I am urging the EPA to carefully consider the comments that have been submitted,” Rutledge said. “This Federal Implementation Plan is a prime example of an overreaching federal regulation in a state in which recent data shows that visibility is improving. A plan crafted by Arkansas officials considering Arkansas’s best interests would serve the state much better.”
In April, EPA representatives from the federal agency’s regional office in Dallas spent an entire day in Little Rock listening to comments from Arkansans on the pros and cons of the federal agency’s proposed rules to clean up haze in the state’s national parks and wilderness areas.
The EPA proposed guidelines that were published in the Federal Register on April 8 reject a portion of ADEQ’s haze plan, called Best Available Retrofit Technology, or BART.
The EPA said the state plan should have made “reasonable progress” toward protecting the Arkansas Buffalo National River, Ouachita National Forest and Caney Creek wilderness area from haze and the harmful effects of pollution. The proposed guidelines also address “downwind” haze problems from Arkansas power plants and factories that cross state lines.
Under the BART plan, ADEQ proposed retrofitting nine units and six mills and power plants across the state to meet the EPA requirements to reduce 71,500 tons a year of sulfur dioxide emissions and up to 15,000 tons of nitrogen oxide annually.
That proposal included limited emissions and five-year compliance schedules for stationary pollution sources across the state, including putting scrubbers, or pollution control devices, on nine smokestacks at six of the state’s largest power plants and factories in control to limit ozone and carbon dioxide emission.
The EPA haze rule would affect two of the state’s oldest coal-fired facilities, White Bluff Electric in Jefferson County and Independence Steam Electric Station in Independence. Those aging facilities are also on the EPA’s list for possible shutdown under the president’s Clean Power Plan that would cut carbon emissions at existing power plants by 2030.
The proposed deadline for written comments was original on May 16, 2015, but was extended to July 15. That deadline has been extended for an additional two weeks, EPA officials said.