The Sierra Club filed a request Tuesday for a federal judge to set a deadline for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue a final plan for implementing a 1999 law on haze in Arkansas.
The motion for summary judgment was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Arkansas against EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. The original lawsuit was filed against McCarthy in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California.
The lawsuit asked the court to compel the EPA to enact a federal implementation plan for Arkansas for regional haze.
Tuesday's motion argues that the EPA has still "not issued a final federal implementation plan for Arkansas to address the regional haze requirements." It also states that the EPA has not approved a revised plan "submitted by [Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] that corrects the deficiencies EPA identified."
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 the 2014 lawsuit from the national Sierra Club -- which has a chapter in Arkansas.
As a result of the lawsuit, the EPA issued a new federal plan earlier this year to the chagrin of utilities, which estimated that it could cost as much as $2 billion to implement.
The federal plan is largely similar to the original state plan in Arkansas, except for the federal plan's inclusion of the 1,700-megawatt Independence coal plant near Newark. Emissions-reducing controls at that plant, along with the 1,700-megawatt White Bluff coal plan near Redfield, could cost $1 billion each, according to Entergy Arkansas. The EPA disputes those estimates.
Entergy Arkansas has proposed phasing out coal use at the White Bluff plant and replacing it with natural gas, solar and/or wind.
EPA officials originally said they would issue a final federal implementation plan by Dec. 15, but pushed that deadline back to accommodate for negotiations on a new state plan with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality.
Department of Environmental Quality Director Becky Keogh said at the end of August that certain facilities would likely remain in the new state plan because of existing state rules.
Meanwhile, the state was granted intervention in the lawsuit Aug. 24, more than a year after the lawsuit was filed. On Sept. 1, the state asked U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes to dismiss the suit.
Information for this article was contributed by Shea Stewart of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 09/09/2015