USSC Rules Against Duke Energy

[RestoreGore]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040407H.shtml


By PETE YOST


WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court dealt a setback to the utility industry Monday, supporting a federal clean air initiative aimed at forcing power companies to install pollution control equipment on aging coal-fired power plants. In a unanimous decision, the justices ruled against Duke Energy Corp. (DUK) in a lawsuit originally brought by the Clinton administration, part of a massive enforcement effort targeting more than a dozen utilities.

Most companies settled with the government, but several Clinton-era cases involving more than two dozen power plants in the South and the Midwest are still pending. The remaining suits demand fines for past pollution that, if levied in full, would run into billions of dollars.

The justices ruled that the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., overstepped its authority by implicitly invalidating 1980 Environmental Protection Agency regulations, interpreting them in a way that favored Duke Energy. The appeals court's decision "seems to us too far a stretch," Justice David Souter wrote. The 1980 regulations "may be no seamless narrative, but they clearly do not define" the law's requirements in the way the energy company interprets them, Souter wrote.

Duke vowed to continue the battle in the lower courts, saying that the question it lost on in the Supreme Court was a narrow one. The company expressed confidence it will be able to demonstrate that its plants are not subject to the requirements of the program called New Source Review. "We continue to believe we have solid defenses against the government's claims," said Marc Manly, Duke Energy group executive and chief legal officer.

The decision will help protect the health of millions of Americans harmed by industrial air pollution, said Sean H. Donahue lead legal counsel in the case for Environmental Defense and other environmental petitioners.

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Another good ruling. And no NEW coal fired power plants should be built without a way to capture carbon. And yet Duke Energy still speaks against this planet by putting profit over human health.