Federal court strikes down pollution rule

A federal appeals court Tuesday overturned a rule to reduce smog-producing emissions coming from power plants in Georgia and 27 other states.

The decision allows Atlanta-based Southern Co. and other utilities to continue to operate coal-fired plants without adding pricey environmental equipment that consumers eventually would pay for.

The rule was designed to cut downwind pollution by curbing the amount of smog and acid rain-contributing sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides coming from power plants. Such pollutants contribute to health problems such as asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory diseases.

The pollution can drift long distances and has prevented many cities from complying with clean-air goals.

Some states supported the "cross-state" rule, but Georgia and others sued the Environmental Protection Agency to block it, saying the January 2012 deadline was unrealistic. Several large power companies, including Southern, also joined the legal fight against the rule.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the regulation exceeded the EPA's statutory authority and imposed "massive emissions reduction requirements" on those states.

"Southern Co. is pleased that the court acknowledged the flaws in the [cross-state air pollution rule] and decided to vacate it and remand it to EPA," said Tim Leljedal, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Southern, which was petitioner in the case on behalf of Georgia Power and its other utilities.

"We continue to believe that [the cross-state air pollution rule] would have imposed unreasonable timelines and costs on our customers," he said.

The court told the EPA to revise the rule and reinstated the Clean Air Interstate Rule in its place. That regulation dates from the Bush administration and phases in emissions reductions over a longer period of time.

The EPA's rule would have required reductions in region-wide sulfur dioxide emissions of 20 percent by 2012 and 50 percent by 2014, and cuts in region-wide nitrogen oxide emissions by 12 percent in 2012 and 18 percent in 2014. Georgia is grouped with states that won't have to observe the 2014 requirements, the EPA said.

The EPA approved a suite of environmental rules last year, placing the agency at the center of attacks by utility and industry groups for what they call job-killing regulations.

Environmental and health organizations, however, lined up Tuesday urging the agency to seek a rehearing.

"The Sierra Club is disappointed with the court's decision today. Americans have been waiting for the clean air they deserve for decades and the court's ruling today further delays the Clean Air Act's promise of safe, breathable air for our children," said Mary Anne Hitt, director of Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal Campaign" to close or prevent the building of coal-fired power stations.

At one time, coal was the dominant source of electricity for Southern and other utilities. EPA rules, coupled with the increased supply and low price of natural gas, have pushed coal out of favor, however.

Southern got 70 percent of its electricity from coal-fired plants as recently as five years ago. Only 16 percent came from natural gas. This year the utility giant will get 47 percent of its fuel from natural gas and 35 percent from coal.

Some of the company's coal units were built in the 1960s, long before pollution controls were created.

Utilities can curb sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides with pollution controls known as scrubbers, equipment that puts a limestone slurry on flue gasses, removing sulfur dioxides from them; and selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, systems. The price to install scrubbers at a plant can range from $300 million to more than $1 billion, Georgia Power has said.