North Carolina-based Nucor Steel, which operates two steel mills in Arkansas, has requested to intervene in a lawsuit between the Sierra Club and the Environmental Protection Agency that resulted in a federal plan to implement regional haze rules in the state earlier this year.
In a filing Friday, Nucor Steel attorneys allege that the Sierra Club and the EPA "colluded" to avoid "the requirements of the formal rule-making process" by settling the lawsuit.
Nucor Steel argued that it would be required to spend millions of dollars to comply with the proposed EPA plan, but the company did not clearly indicate if it also would have been required to spend millions of dollars to comply with a state plan proposed earlier.
A voicemail left for a Nucor Steel representative was not returned immediately Friday afternoon.
Haze occurs when light passes through certain particles that absorb light rather than spread it, including sulfates, nitrates, organic carbon, black carbon and windblown soil.
The haze plan targets sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions with the aim of improving visibility in two Arkansas national wilderness areas -- Caney Creek and the Upper Buffalo River -- and two Missouri parks -- the Hercules-Glades Wilderness Area and the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge. The haze plan targets visibility, but proponents have argued that it will have beneficial health effects for people with respiratory diseases.
The EPA and Sierra Club reached a proposed consent decree Dec. 22 for the EPA to issue a federal implementation plan of a regional haze rule under the Clean Air Act. The consent decree has been filed into the federal register and commented on but not filed into court as a final document.
Nucor's attorneys wrote that the EPA "stands to become more powerful, not less, as a result of the Consent Decree, and thus has no interest in raising the issue of [the Sierra Club's] standing [in court]."
The regional haze rule was passed by Congress in 1999 but has yet to be implemented in Arkansas.
The EPA had rejected part of the state implementation plan proposed by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality in 2012 and had until April 11, 2014, to approve of a new state plan or issue a federal plan.
The state never submitted a new plan, and the EPA never proposed its own, prompting the lawsuit from the Sierra Club.
The EPA issued a federal implementation plan in March that many business representatives said was similar to the original state plan, except for the inclusion of the Independence plant in Newark, partially owned by Entergy and the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.
Meeting the requirements of the plan, business and environmental advocates have said, likely would cause the closure of certain plants or the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars by several companies to comply with the rules.
EPA spokesman Jennah Durant said Friday that she had not yet seen the filing and that the agency does not typically comment on ongoing litigation.
Glen Hooks, chapter director of the Sierra Club of Arkansas, said Friday in an emailed statement that the Sierra Club's lawsuit merely intended to "make sure EPA followed the law."
"Nucor's objections should have nothing to do with Sierra Club or EPA following the law," he said. "If Nucor doesn't like the Clean Air Act and its deadlines, then the objections are with Congress and the language of the statute."
Metro on 05/02/2015