In a gift to the struggling coal industry, a new air pollution rule
finalized by the EPAwill allow Texas coal plants to emit almost twice as much sulfur dioxide than an earlier proposal by the Obama administration. Aside from being a key component in forming haze, sulfur dioxide exacerbates respiratory illnesses such as asthma and contributes to acid rain.
“The new proposal is a sham,” said Dan Cohan, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University. “It does nothing. It sets a cap that’s higher than what those plants have been emitting for the past few years.”
For the last decade, hit by a double whammy of cheap natural gas and renewables and the cost of complying with air pollution rules, coal plants across the country have been shutting down. The Regional Haze Rule, which under the Obama administration required Texas to cut sulfur emissions by more than 55 percent — from about 218,500 tons a year to about 93,000 tons, costing utility companies $2 billion — could’ve been the final straw for many of the state’s aging and outdated coal plants.
The rule was issued in 1999 and required states to submit plans to improve visibility in national parks and wilderness areas by 2007. Texas was one of 34 states to miss the deadline and, last year, after the state proposed a plan that
would have taken 141 years to achieve reasonable visibility in Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks, the Obama EPA forced a plan on the state.