By J. Lyn Carl, GalleryWatch.com
Austin, TX –
Concerns over emissions by Texas power plants brought environmentalists and consumer advocates together today to urge the Texas Legislature to encourage utilities to make "significant" nitrous oxide reductions.
Stephanie Carter, with the statewide environmental organization Texas Public Interest Research Group, said emission releases continue to cause pollution. While most are cleaner than they were several years ago, she said, despite emission decreases, "Some plants are getting even dirtier."
While many plants have reduced their sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions, Carter said facilities owned by TXU, the Lower Colorado River Authority and Austin Energy, and the Texas Municipal Power Association actually increased their emissions from 1997-2003.
And despite those reductions, said Carter, Texas still ranks fourth in the nation in emissions that cause smog and is first in carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming. Texas power plants also lead the nation in mercury emissions, said the environmentalist.
She called President George W. Bush's Clean Air Act, the "Dirty Air Plan," which she says would delay emission and pollution controls. She said her organization will ask U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn of Texas to support the Clean Power Act, S. 150, in Congress, which Carter said strengthens and accelerates soot and smog emission controls and sets a "reasonable national cap" on emissions that contribute to global warming.
Tom "Smitty" Smith of Public Citizen, said Texas ranks first in carbon dioxide and mercury emissions, noting, "The vision in Big Bend is a third what it used to be from haze from power plants, cars and other sources."
Smith said the U.S. Senate has begun debate on Bush's Clear Skies initiative that will clean up power plants. However, he noted, it will not do anything to reduce emissions in Texas, and Central Texas in particular, until 2018, which he called "far too late."
Smith said Bush's plan "does too little, too late" to prevent emission levels from climbing too high.
The consumer advocate said the Texas Legislature has an opportunity to do something to control emissions and clean up the air and the environment - to work with the U.S. Senate to reduce emission levels in Texas "to ensure air quality that is safe to breathe in the metropolitan areas."
Texas previously led the nation in asking utilities to make significant NOx reductions. "That's a good first step," he said, but pointed that Environmental Protection Agency data shows, "We didn't do enough." Smith said the state is "out of options" and must go back to utilities and ask them for additional emission reductions to ensure Texas air is safe to breathe.