The Trump administration Friday further eroded Colorado’s longstanding mandate to close coal-fired power plants by 2031, saying the state’s required regional haze-fighting plan goes too far and violates the Clean Air Act.
But the regional haze plan covers everything from emissions at the Suncor refinery and Colorado’s three major cement kilns to natural gas power and other pollution sources. In rejecting the entire plan, the EPA may throw many of Colorado’s pollution fighting plans into regulatory purgatory for years.
Colorado’s coal plants are needed for “grid reliability,” the federal government said Friday, though Colorado regulators and environmental groups counter that the state has a carefully constructed, long-term plan for reliably replacing coal with clean solar, wind and battery storage.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is disapproving Colorado’s required regional haze state implementation plan, intended to clear the air in Rocky Mountain National Park and other public spaces, because the state “put desire to close power plants over federal law.”
“The state’s attempt to shut down many coal-fired power plants” was not needed to meet regional haze requirements, the EPA said, in announcing the plan rejection. The announcement specifically mentions Colorado Springs Utilities when explaining that Colorado’s plan unlawfully closes coal sources “without consent from all the plants.”
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