Environment America is the new home of U.S. PIRG’s environmental work.
Washington, DC—U.S. PIRG and
a coalition of states and citizen groups today announced a landmark court
settlement with American Electric Power (AEP) that will substantially reduce
air pollution from the company’s fleet of aging coal-fired power plants. The coalition sued AEP in 1999 for violating
the Clean Air Act’s “New Source Review” rules, which require power companies to
install modern pollution controls when otherwise upgrading their plants.
“It took an eight-year legal
battle, but today’s announcement means big cuts in air pollution from some of
the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants,” said U.S. PIRG Clean Air
Advocate Emily Figdor. “The pollution
from these plants contributes to asthma attacks and other serious health
problems.”
AEP is the largest industrial
emitter of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide in the country. These two pollutants are precursors to ozone
(“smog”) and particulate (“soot”) pollution, which exact a serious toll on
public health, contributing to asthma attacks, respiratory disease, heart
attacks, and tens of thousands of premature deaths each year.
The settlement requires AEP
to install $4.6 billion worth of pollution control equipment on its power
plants over the next decade, provide $60 million to fund environmental
mitigation projects, and pay a record $15 million fine. The pollution controls will reduce sulfur
dioxide emissions by 79 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 69 percent from
the 16 plants covered by the settlement.
U.S. PIRG was represented in
the lawsuit by the Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Law and Policy Center, and National Resources Defense Council.
