Northeast states press EPA to crack down on Rust Belt, South

万得福

Michael Bastasch

Eight Democratic states in the Northeast are pressing the Environmental  Protection Agency to crack down on cross-state emissions from Rust Belt and  Appalachian states.
Democratic governors from Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New  Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont say that ozone-forming pollution  travels from Midwestern states into their states through prevailing winds, reports Reuters. The governors are  petitioning the EPA to regulate the emissions that cross into their borders  ahead of a major Supreme Court argument on Tuesday.
Northeast states argue that their air is often polluted when air from the  Rust Belt and Appalachia blows to north and east. All the while, Midwestern and  Southern states get clean air from the Mountain West.

“We’re paying a lot of money to remove these compounds from the air,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy told The New York Times. “That money is  reflected in higher energy costs. We’re more than willing to pay that, but the  states we’re petitioning should have to follow the same rules.”
But the coal industry argues that the Northeast ozone pollution is mostly due  to vehicles and business along the Eastern Seaboard.
“It’s been very convenient for Northeastern states to blame their ozone  problem on Midwestern power plants, but they’re a very small part of the  problem,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a former EPA  assistant administrator who now lobbies for coal companies. “It mostly comes  from all those vehicles and businesses along the Eastern Seaboard.”
Last year, federal judges struck down the EPA’s Cross-State Pollution Rule  that regulated emissions moving across states. The court said the agency’s rule  was too strict and didn’t give states enough time to put emissions-reduction  plans in place.
Now the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether or not to revive that  rule which would affect 28 states. Environmentalists and the Obama  administration are arguing that the rule should be revived, while the coal  industry and energy states say the law should be left dead.
“EPA’s own data showed that the agency was imposing emissions reductions far  greater than necessary for downwind states to achieve attainment,” power  producer Luminant’s lawyers told the court.
The rule would put huge strains on the coal industry, which is already  feeling the pressure of EPA regulations.
Coal company Murray Energy Corporation’s spokesman, Gary Broadbent, said the  EPA’s cross-state pollution rule was “absolutely irrational, exorbitantly  expensive,” and that it “would kill thousands of jobs, with no environmental  benefit whatsoever.”

archers

已阅