Power plant rules toughened

WASHINGTON – Pollution that blows hundreds of miles from coal-fired power plants into other states will be reduced under a final plan that the Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday.

The rule, a revision of a Bush administration plan, will require pollution reductions in 27 states from Texas and Minnesota on the west to the East Coast. Cleaner, healthier air is expected as a result in the eastern, central and southern parts of the country, home to 240 million people.

The Clean Air Act requires under a “good neighbor” provision that power plants don’t export pollution to other states. Some states, including North Carolina and Delaware, cleaned up their own plants but ended up with unhealthy air days anyway because of pollution from tall power plant smokestacks hundreds of miles away in other states.

“Just because wind and weather will carry pollution away from its source at a local power plant, it doesn’t mean the pollution is no longer that plant’s responsibility,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said.

Medical experts say that the fine particles and soot from power plants can be deadly, especially for people with heart and lung conditions.

While many of the nation’s power plants have installed the equipment needed to reduce the pollution, others have held off.

The equipment was first required under a 2005 rule issued by the Bush administration EPA to solve the interstate pollution problem. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck it down in 2008, however, saying it was “fundamentally flawed” and didn’t go far enough. The court left the old rule temporarily in place and gave the EPA a deadline to improve it.

Jackson said the new plan puts firmer caps on pollution.

The EPA estimated the pollution controls would cost $1.6 billion per year over 30 years. It projected health benefits of $280 billion per year. The agency also said that the money spent on pollution controls would create U.S. jobs.