The D.C. appellate court issued a final ruling last weekupholding the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 1998clean-air rule requiring several states east of the MississippiRiver to enforce strict nitrogen-oxide (NOx) emission standards.

“This decision is a major environmental victory for everyoneliving throughout the eastern United States,” said EPAAdministrator Carol M. Brown. At the same time, it was a big lossfor coal-fired plants in the Midwest.

Although the clean-air rule leaves it strictly up to individualstates to choose which sources to tightly regulate, the EPA hassuggested they zero in on vintage coal-fired generation plants thatit contends have been the biggest contributors of NOx pollution indownwind states — particularly in the Northeast region.

Last Thursday, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Districtof Columbia denied a petition by a host of electric utilities andSoutheastern and Midwestern states to review a March decision inwhich a three-judge panel of the appellate court upheld the EPA.The lawsuit initially was filed in May 1999.

The ruling gives the agency the go-ahead to move forward withenforcement of its 1998 NOx-reduction rule in 19 of the 22 statesthat are believed to be significant contributors of NOx emissions.It calls for each of the 19 states and the District of Columbia tosubmit NOx-reduction plans to EPA by the end of October, said EPAspokesman David Ryan.

Excluded from the appeals court decision were Georgia, Missouriand Wisconsin. The agency is planning to issue a new rulemaking forGeorgia and Missouri, but Wisconsin is “out completely,” Ryannoted.

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