Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge filed the state's response Tuesday to a Sierra Club lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that resulted in a federal plan on regional haze, asking that the suit be dismissed.
The state was allowed intervention in the 2014 federal lawsuit on Aug. 24.
The Regional Haze Rule is a part of the Clean Air Act that was passed in 1999. It aims to improve visibility at certain national wilderness areas across the country by targeting sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from industrial facilities -- often, coal-fired power plants. Arkansas is charged with implementing measures to improve visibility at two state sites and two sites in Missouri.
In 2012, the EPA partially rejected the state's proposal for implementing the Regional Haze Rule. The state never resubmitted that plan, and the EPA didn't submit a federal plan, prompting a 2014 lawsuit from the national Sierra Club --which has a chapter in Arkansas. The lawsuit said the EPA had neglected its duties in not carrying out the 1999 law.
The proposed federal implementation plan, submitted earlier this year, is similar to the state-submitted plan. However, the federal plan includes a call for emissions reductions at Entergy Arkansas' 1,700-megawatt Independence coal-fired power plant near Newark.
Utilities estimate the cost of compliance to be as much as $2 billion, which the EPA disputes.
In the filing Tuesday, Assistant Attorney General Jamie L. Ewing acknowledges that the state did not submit a revised implementation plan after having its first one partially rejected by the EPA.
Rutledge's office argues, however, that the Sierra Club does not have standing to bring the lawsuit. She does not elaborate on the issue of "standing."
The attorney general's office has previously argued in filings that the state should issue its own plan because that was the intention of the Clean Air Act. The office has also said that the state need not issue a plan right away because it is already on target to meet its visibility goals.
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Becky Keogh has said the EPA and the department are working on a potential new state implementation plan. Keogh said last week that certain facilities would likely remain implicated in the new state plan because of existing state rules.
Metro on 09/02/2015