Press Release

 

For Immediate Release:                                Contact:

April 2, 2007                                                     Neil F. Woodworth, (518) 449-3870

U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Boosts Acid Rain Lawsuits

ADK Helps Win Critical Clean Air Act Case

The Supreme Court gave a big boost today to a federal clean air law intended by Congress to force utilities to install air pollution control equipment on aging coal-fired power plants.

In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled against Duke Energy Corp. in a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit brought because the utility modernized its power plants and increased their rate of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions without installing scrubbers to remove these gases that cause acid rain, smog and haze in the Adirondacks.

The utility industry has stonewalled installing air pollution controls when rebuilding coal burning power plants regulated under the Clean Air Act program called New Source Review.

In this decision, Duke Energy argued that they were not obligated to install air pollution control technology if they kept their rate of air pollution per hour below a certain rate even when their capital improvements enabled them to double both the hours of operation and the actual amount of acid deposition emitted measured on a yearly basis. 

The high court ruled that the correct interpretation of the Clean Air Act was that the true measure of an increase in pollution was whether the plant improvements caused an actual increase in the amount of air pollution and thereby triggering the obligation to install the latest air pollution control technology.

To curb the mounting and cumulative damage to our mountain ecosystems from acid rain and mercury, the state, with the support of ADK, filed suits in the federal courts to force utilities to install the latest pollution control technology on some 70 coal burning power plants that produce an estimated 80% of the acid rain in the Adirondacks. With this crucial U.S. Supreme Court ruling, the way is now clear to win these lawsuits and force a major clean-up of the culprit coal burning power plants.

ADK was the only Adirondack and New York advocacy group that filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in this critical case.

Click here to read a pdf version of the Supreme Court decision.

Click here to read a pdf version of ADK's amicus brief.