The Tribune dismisses federal Environmental Protection Agency efforts to reduce air pollution from coal-fired electric power plants in Illinois and the Midwest, largely because it questions whether the plants contribute to smog in Northeastern cities. (Editorial, Nov. 13). But what is their effect on the Midwest and Chicago? The EPA doesn’t need to prove that pollution from Midwestern plants affects the East Coast to justify its actions. The toll on Midwesterners is more than enough. Here these plants do the most damage, especially to children, people with lung disease and older adults who are more susceptible to soot and toxic chemicals.
Old, coal-fired plants are the largest source of air pollution in Illinois. They can pollute many times more than new plants because of an exemption from more stringent air pollution limits that plants built after 1977 must meet. As a result, while cars, factories, lawn mowers and virtually every other source of air pollution has gotten cleaner over the past few decades, coal plants built in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s lag way behind.
This exemption has allowed 236,000 tons of additional smog-forming nitrogen oxides from power plants every year in Illinois, an amount equal to the pollution of 12.1 million cars. With air pollution linked to thousands of premature deaths and more than 200,000 asthma attacks annually in Illinois, the federal exemption from tighter air pollution limits is a significant public health problem.
It’s time to end this “lethal loophole.” Members of Congress should support the Clean Smokestacks Act, introduced by U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sherwood Boehlert (R-N.Y.), which would require old plants to meet modern emissions limits. Coal plants that have been rebuilt piece by piece, to the point where they are essentially new, should be required to meet the tighter limits that apply to new plants.
