NRECA is taking its fight to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s mercury and air rule for power plants to the U.S. Supreme Court, maintaining that the rule will create substantial costs and reliability impacts for electric cooperatives but provide no appreciable health benefits.
On Aug. 22, the association led a coalition of co-ops and industry groups in filing an application to stay the rule with the Supreme Court after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined a similar request earlier this month. A group of 23 states led by North Dakota separately asked the high court to halt the regulation until legal challenges against it are resolved.
“This EPA rule is unlawful, unworkable and poses a serious threat to electric reliability,” NRECA CEO Jim Matheson said. “Absent a stay, it will force plant operators to install expensive, excessive and unjustified equipment that provides marginal benefit at their power plants or shut down. In many cases, this will push essential always-available generation off the grid, just as Americans are increasing their reliance on electricity.”
As it did with the D.C. Circuit, NRECA told the Supreme Court that the rule will cause “substantial, irreparable, and immediate harm” to electric co-ops while having “no appreciable public health benefits.”
The rule, released in April, ratcheted down filterable particulate matter emissions limits by 67% for all coal-fired plants and will require plants burning lignite coal to slash mercury emissions by 70% compared to EPA’s 2012 standard. EPA did so even though the agency found no residual health risks and did not identify any new cost-effective technologies that warranted tighter standards, which is unlawful under the Clean Air Act, NRECA argues.
Plant operators must comply with the new standards by July 2027.
In its stay request, NRECA said power plants are spending up to $1 million on testing just to assess whether they can meet the final rule’s emissions requirements while remaining commercially viable. It also noted the long lead time for upgrading emissions controls, with the electrostatic precipitator alterations needed to meet the rule’s filterable particulate matter limits taking three full years.
“The final rule imposes an unduly short timeframe to commence lengthy and expensive control projects, or units will be forced to shut down,” NRECA told the Supreme Court. “The associated costs are unrecoverable.”
NRECA filed its new stay request along with four generation and transmission co-ops—Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. in Missouri, Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Minnkota Power Cooperative in North Dakota, and East Kentucky Power Cooperative—as well as the Lignite Energy Council, the National Mining Association and Rainbow Energy Center.
Minnkota estimated it could spend over $260 million to bring its Milton R. Young lignite coal-fired power plant into compliance with the EPA’s new standards, according to the new stay request.
Molly Christian is a staff writer for NRECA.