Editorial
It was a quick one-two combination _ no knockdown, but it clearly got Duke Energy's attention.
First
came a report on a study by the North Carolina Public Interest Research
Group that analyzed recent federal data and concluded that this state
is the nation's second-worst air polluter and that Duke's coal-fired
Belews Creek plant is the state's worst. The numbers are subject to
tweaking, but let that go for a moment.
Next,
the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the 4th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals erred in effectively voiding air-quality regulations
that Duke and the Environmental Protection Agency's political bosses
didn't want enforced.
Obviously,
you could shift the furniture a bit by arguing over the meaning of
"worst." Does it mean volume, or does it mean relative toxicity? What
if you left this pollutant out of the calculations, or included that
one over there?
In
the end, though, all that adds up to no points for Duke. The Belews
Creek plant injected more than 13 million pounds of toxicants into the
air in 2004 _ not a record that any public-relations department would
be eager to defend. And the utility must have been stunned if the best
counterpunch it could manage was a limp comment to the effect that the
high court had ruled on a "narrow issue." The issue was narrow _ and
Duke Energy and the 4th Circuit were on the wrong side of it.
The
high court also had an attention-getter for coal-burning utilities
everywhere, ruling that the EPA's case for refusing to recognize carbon
dioxide as a pollutant was full of holes, not the least of which was
that it relied on arguments that had more to do with foreign policy
than with breathable air and the rule of law.
This
doesn't end it, of course. It may prove to have been only a modest
beginning as the anti-reforms of recent years are slowly rolled back,
over entrenched opposition.
It
is ironic, though. If, early on, the industry had invested as much in
installing first-rate pollution technology as it has invested in
lobbying, lawsuits and delays intended to avoid installing it, the
utilities probably would have bigger profits, wider support and fewer
critics today. And the air would have been as clean for the past 25
years as they're likely to be compelled to make it over the next 25.
