Refineries must curb emissions

SEATTLE – Washington must restrict greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s five oil refineries and possibly other industries under a federal judge’s ruling Friday.

The Sierra Club, the Washington Environmental Council and their lawyers at Earthjustice sued the state Ecology Department and two regional clean air agencies in March to force them to do a better job curbing emissions from the refineries. The groups estimate the refineries are responsible for up to 8 percent of all greenhouse gases released in Washington.

Under the state’s own environmental rules, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman noted, regulators are supposed to require “reasonably available control technology” by industrial emitters of greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide. State regulators never actually enforced that. Regulators require refineries only to comply with reductions of certain other air pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide.

Seth Preston, a spokesman for the state Ecology Department, said Friday that officials had just received the ruling and were reviewing it.

“To be able to talk about far-reaching implications, we’re not there yet,” he said.