Washington, DC—Environment Oregon and a coalition of states and citizen groups today announced a landmark court settlement with American Electric Power (AEP) that will substantially reduce air pollution from the company’s fleet of aging coal-fired power plants.
The coalition sued AEP in 1999 for violating the Clean Air Act’s “New Source Review” rules, which require power companies to install modern pollution controls when otherwise upgrading their plants.
“It took an eight-year legal battle, but today’s announcement means big cuts in air pollution from some of the nation’s oldest and dirtiest power plants,” said Environment Oregon's Jeremiah Baumann. “The pollution from these plants contributes to asthma attacks and other serious health problems.”
AEP is the largest industrial emitter of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide in the country. These two pollutants are precursors to ozone (“smog”) and particulate (“soot”) pollution, which exact a serious toll on public health, contributing to asthma attacks, respiratory disease, heart attacks, and tens of thousands of premature deaths each year.
The settlement requires AEP to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 79 percent and nitrogen oxide
emissions by 69 percent from the 16 plants covered by the settlement. AEP will spend $4.6 billion on pollution control equipment, provide $60 million to fund environmental mitigation projects, and pay a record $15 million fine.
Environment Oregon was a plaintiff through U.S. PIRG, its network of affiliated organizations in other states, and was represented in the lawsuit by the Clean Air Task Force, Environmental Law and Policy Center, and National Resources Defense Council.
