>From Appalachian Voices, http://www.appvoices.org.
-------- Original Message -------- I have some very exciting news to share with you. Yesterday, North Carolina's attorney general petitioned the EPA to crack down on air pollution coming from 13 nearby states. This petition has the weight of the Clean Air Act behind it, and it makes North Carolina the first state in the South to join the legal battles for clean air. This is something Appalachian Voices has been working hard to achieve: making sure North Carolina pressures neighboring states to reduce their air pollution, one of the key mandates from the landmark 2002 Clean Smokestacks Act. As North Carolina attorney general Roy Cooper put it in today's New York Times, "We believe we have done as much as we could in informal negotiations with other states. I believe it's up to the states to move forward to clean our air. I don't believe we can depend on Washington. We have to do it ourselves." The article in today's New York Times called this "a move that opens a new front in the clean air wars." I've pasted the full article below. Your support of Appalachian Voices makes our clean air work possible, and we thank you. If you'd like to make a donation to support Appalachian Voices and our efforts for clean air in the southern mountains, click here: http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=77831:959189. For more information about our campaign to fight air pollution in the southern mountains, click here: http://mailhost.groundspring.org/cgi-bin/t.pl?id=77832:959189 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- New York Times March 19, 2004 North Carolina Asks E.P.A. to Force Others to Clean Air By JENNIFER 8. LEE WASHINGTON, March 18 ? In a move that opens a new front in the clean air wars, North Carolina has petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to crack down on pollution that it says is seeping across its borders from power plants in 13 other states. If the petition succeeds, states as far away as Michigan would have to cut power plant pollution by more than 50 percent, while states nearer North Carolina would face reductions of 70 percent to 80 percent. "We believe we have done as much as we could in informal negotiations with other states," said Roy Cooper, the North Carolina attorney general. "I believe it's up to the states to move forward to clean our air. I don't believe we can depend on Washington. We have to do it ourselves." In addition to Michigan, the states named in the petition are Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Traditionally, Northeastern states and California have led the legal battles for clean air. North Carolina's action is a reflection of pressure on state and local governments, which face economic repercussions if they are not in compliance with tough new ozone standards that take effect on April 15 under the federal Clean Air Act. States are considering such actions as cracking down on power plants, lowering speed limits and discouraging house painting during sweltering summer months in an effort to reduce the dangerous combination of ingredients that produce ozone. Those ingredients are heat, nitrogen oxides and the volatile organic compounds that are often found in consumer products like paint and barbecue fluid. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than half the nation's population will be living in areas that are in violation of the Clean Air Act after April 15. North Carolina, despite enacting one of the nation's strictest power plant pollution laws in 2002, says it will not be able to meet the new standards in part because of pollution wafting in from other states. Gov. Michael F. Easley and Mr. Cooper, both Democrats, sent warning letters over the past several months, urging neighboring states to adopt strict pollution controls. In its petition, North Carolina is invoking a little-used but powerful section of the Clean Air Act that allows states to ask the environmental agency to address pollution from out-of-state sources. The section was last invoked in 1997, when eight Northeastern states petitioned the agency to reduce smog from the Midwest. In granting the requests of four of those states, the agency tightened pollution controls for smog nationwide. The agency has 60 days to respond to North Carolina's petition. If it grants the petition, the pollution sources must halt operations within three months unless the E.P.A. approves a plan that will bring them into compliance as quickly as possible. Agency officials could tell North Carolina that its concerns have been addressed in proposed regulations to reduce power plant pollution in Eastern states. The proposal, called the interstate air quality rule, would gradually tighten limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide through 2015. Cynthia Bergman, an agency spokeswoman, said Thursday that the rule would allow the agency to "address the needs of all states grappling with the regional transport of air pollution rather than addressing individual petitions from multiple states." But North Carolina officials said they hoped the E.P.A. would still grant their petition. "We believe that the remedies are not mutually exclusive," Mr. Cooper said. At the least, environmental advocacy groups say North Carolina's petition could help push the rule toward approval. There is no deadline for its adoption. "This petition reinforces and strengthens the need for E.P.A. to finalize its interstate air quality rule currently under consideration," said Michael Shore, who directs the air quality initiative in the Southeast for the advocacy group Environmental Defense.
