U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine wrote a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy to urge the agency to adopt attainable New Source Performance Standard for coal-fired power plants. In the letter, Kaine noted his support as governor for the permitting of the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center, a state-of-the-art coal plant in Southwest Virginia that dramatically reduced mercury and sulfur emissions. Facilities like Virginia City could not be permitted if the EPA issued the same regulations for new gas-fired and coal-fired plants.
“In order to get cleaner tomorrow than today, states need strong, achievable goals and the options and flexibility to meet them,” Kaine wrote in his letter to McCarthy. “I am encouraged by the proposals contained in the President’s recent plan that promote innovation in clean-coal technologies; incentivize energy efficiency; and drive forward the commercialization of renewable alternatives. I believe an NSPS providing these wide-ranging, flexible mechanisms for emissions reduction makes more sense than a standard that effectively shuts down coal, potentially resulting in modern facilities being decommissioned with decades of use left.”
The Energy Information Administration ranks Virginia as 12th in the nation in coal production.
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