Source: NCDENR, 8/17/15

The N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources is joining a host of other states in opposing two recent Environmental Protection Agency directives that will raise power bills and hurt job creation without improving air quality.

Last week, DENR joined 16 states in a lawsuit against the EPA’s Final Startup, Shutdown, and Malfunction Rule. The rule requires states to put in place requirements for industrial facilities to follow air pollution rules during times when the facilities are starting up, shutting down or when a malfunction occurs.

The rule ignores North Carolina’s significant improvements in air quality over the past decade and could have a devastating impact on North Carolina’s robust renewable energy industry. The rule will make coal and gas-fired plants unavailable when solar and wind fail to provide electricity.

The rule also does not account for the billions of dollars North Carolinians have already spent to reduce harmful nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions.

“EPA’s Final SSM Rule revises its previous approval of provisions related to emissions during startup, shutdown, and malfunction and is not based on any scientific demonstration or documented failure of our existing state plan.,” van der Vaart wrote in the Environmentally Speaking blog. “This about-face on the part of the EPA comes at a time when North Carolinians are breathing cleaner air than any time in the more than four decades since the passage of the Clean Air Act.”

DENR’s leadership is also speaking out against the EPA’s Clean Power Plan for many of the same reasons it opposed the Final Startup, Shutdown, and Malfunction Rule.

The Clean Power Plan was issued earlier this month and aims to reduce carbon emissions at power plants. The Clean Power Plan would require North Carolina to reduce carbon emissions by 36 percent by 2030 but ignores major air quality improvements made in North Carolina between 2005 and 2012. The plan would cost consumers and businesses an estimated $41 billion per year. It is estimated the average North Carolina household’s electricity and gas bill would increase by $434 in 2020, a 22 percent hike over current rates.

The News & Observer published an op-ed by Secretary van der Vaart on Saturday in response to comments made by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper. In the piece, van der Vaart pointed out that a number of states, political leaders and environmental groups have all consistently maintained that the federal EPA cannot legally use section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants.

“We do not share Cooper’s belief that the federal EPA is the best guardian of North Carolina’s economic and environmental interests,” van der Vaart wrote. “EPA is essentially asking North Carolina to make a Prius more efficient while our neighboring states are driving 1972 Cadillacs. … It would be wise for North Carolina to wait for a final judicial ruling before spending scarce public resources. In the meantime, DENR will continue to make further improvements to the air North Carolinians breathe.”

DENR’s publicized opposition to both federal directives can be found on its Environmentally Speaking blog at http://portal.ncdenr.org/web/guest/denr-blog.