NC's 126 Petition: Curbing pollution in 14 states
Background
North Carolina filed a petition with the EPA on March 18, 2004, to compel the agency to crack down on polluting power plants in 13 upwind states. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from those states contribute to North Carolina's inability to meet federal clean air standards.
The move, led by NC Attorney General Roy Cooper and NC Governor Mike Easley, would reduce roughly half of the nation’s total sulfur dioxide pollution. The state invoked a seldom used section of the Clean Air Act that allows states who can't meet the standards due in part to upwind pollution to petition the EPA to take action in upwind states.
Faced with the reversals and rollbacks of air quality rules by the Bush Administration, North Carolina in 2002 passed a strong state law to clean up its own smokestacks, and is now urging the EPA to take action in other states.
The petition would yield a 75% reduction in sulfur dioxide — approximately half of all U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions — and a 69% reduction in nitrogen oxides over roughly the next three years. North Carolina's action will greatly benefit people living in the target states, including Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
In November 2004, SELC, on behalf of Environmental Defense, put the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on notice of our intent to sue the agency for its failure to act on the petition. Then, on February 17 2005, SELC joined the state of North Carolina in a settlement with the EPA that requires EPA to respond to the state's 126 petition by August 1, 2005.
The August response confirmed that 10 states named in the petition contribute to North Carolina's particle pollution, or soot, problem but denied that 3 other states contribute to the state's ozone problem. To combat the soot threat, EPA proposed a federal implementation plan (FIP) to ensure timely implementation of the Clean Air Interstate Rule, released in March.
The FIP is intended to fill the gap until states adopt their own implementation plan for CAIR, required by September, 2006.
Under the federal implementation plan for CAIR, power plants that fall below federal caps on SO2 and NOx emissions are allowed to sell pollution credits to dirtier plants, many of which are located in the Southeast. While such caps are expected to reduce SO2 emissions by 70 percent and NOx emissions by 60 percent in the 28 states affected by CAIR, such a policy will do little to clean the air in downwind North Carolina.
