Waco Tribune-Herald: Edwards Writes Legislation Calling for New Federal Study of Coal Plant Emissions

Press Release

Waco Tribune-Herald: Edwards writes legislation calling for new federal study of coal plant emissions

By David Doerr

U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards says he wants to clear the politically charged atmosphere surrounding air pollution in Central Texas by bringing in the feds.

Edwards, D-Waco, is concerned about the recent proliferation of proposals to build coal-fired power plants in Central Texas, where six units are on the drawing board.
Environmental groups and Waco-area business and city leaders have opposed several new plants out of fear their emissions could have detrimental health impacts and bring economic sanctions for falling out of compliance with the Clean Air Act.

To address their concerns, Edwards has written legislation requesting that the federal Government Accountability Office review whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's process to permit new power plants complies with the Clean Air Act. If the legislation passes, Edwards intends to ask the GAO to conduct a cumulative impact study on a host of emissions known to foul the air and cause health problems.

Under the state's current permitting process, the cumulative impact of air pollution only has to be considered within 37 miles of a plant, Edwards said.

"It doesn't make sense for any regulatory authority to take the approach that we wouldn't care whether 100 plants were being built near Waco if all of them were 38 miles from Waco," he said. "That doesn't pass anyone's common-sense test."

Inadequate research

Although the state commissioned a study by a private firm called Environ more than a year ago that considered cumulative impacts, environmental groups, EPA officials and the city of Waco have said it was inadequate.

Edwards said the Environ study had several flaws, including that it was based on days with unusual wind patterns and that it did not include data from an entire ozone season.
Ozone levels, which can burn sensitive lungs and stunt trees and crops, are of a particular concern. Cities on the EPA's ozone nonattainment list, such as Dallas and Houston, have had to resort to burdensome cleanup measures, such as reformulated gasoline, stricter vehicle inspections and extra industrial regulations.

The EPA is proposing to adopt tougher standards in March 2008, and that has Waco city leaders worried about becoming a nonattainment area. City Manager Larry Groth said a cumulative impact study is essential to know what might push Waco over the limit and into nonattainment status.

‘"If (the study) is good science and it tells us something we need to know, then that is just good data for us," he said. "We need to be making decisions on good data."

Good science, good data

Edwards has worked quietly over the last few weeks to insert a provision for a federal study into legislation that funds the U.S. Interior Department. The provision made it into the $515.7 billion omnibus spending bill being considered this week in Congress.

An earlier version drew opposition from Gov. Rick Perry, who wrote a senior Republican senator and asked him to strike it from the spending bill. In the letter, Perry wrote it would be "duplicative and unfortunate" for Congress to consider targeting only a region of Texas when assessing the cumulative impacts of coal-fired power plant emissions.

But Monday, Perry spokeswoman Allison Castle said Edwards' revised provision was "much improved."

"The original language contained a study of (carbon dioxide) and mercury, and (carbon dioxide) is not recognized as a pollutant by EPA," she said. "This would have singled out Texas."

The new language for the GAO study does not mention specific emissions, but pollutants most commonly associated with coal-fired power plants likely would be considered in its findings, an Edwards spokesman said.

GAO's reputation

Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office, said he is pleased to see the GAO, Congress's investigative arm, designated to conduct the study because of its reputation for unbiased work.

In the past, when concerns arose about how the TCEQ handles permitting, the EPA usually would let the state slide, Smith said.

"Although Congress and the administration have had a number of battles over exactly these kinds of issues over the last decade, having an independent third party analyze it will help determine whether or not TCEQ and EPA are doing their jobs," Smith said.

Edwards acknowledged that the study alone would not affect how power plants are permitted in Texas. But if it concluded that the state was not in compliance with the Clean Air Act, its findings would be difficult to ignore, he said.

"The TXU plan to build 11 new coal-fired plants wasn't killed by the technical permitting process," Edwards said. "It was killed by the uprising of public opinion all across the state."

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