No on new coal plant

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

An Environmental Protection Agency appeals board last week said the agency could not issue a permit for a proposed coal-burning power plant in Utah because it had not considered the effects of global warming.

The Sierra Club, which brought the appeal, said the decision would likely delay plans for other coal-fired power plants as well. That includes proposals to build three plants in eastern Nevada, which are all awaiting federal approval.

As Phoebe Sweet reported in Saturday’s Las Vegas Sun, the board’s decision is part of a larger debate over the regulation of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. The EPA has claimed it doesn’t have the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. The board, however, found it does. And recently the Supreme Court ordered the agency to determine whether the gas is a danger to the public. If the EPA finds carbon dioxide is, it will have to regulate it.

For the public that is good news because of the effects of carbon dioxide on global warming. The country should be doing all it reasonably can to reduce greenhouse gases, and that includes limiting and regulating the emissions of power plants.

It is also good that the decision on the Utah power plant, as well as the Nevada plants, will likely end up in the hands of President-elect Barack Obama’s administration. After eight years of the Bush administration’s minimizing of global warming, the Obama administration has the potential to take positive action toward reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.

That may not be good news to the utilities, which will be forced to install better technology to control carbon dioxide, but they have an option — invest in alternative energy sources.

In the past, utilities have preferred to build plants that spew hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon dioxide. But now the board’s ruling should make it clear that it’s time to move away from fossil fuels.