Lawsuit Challenges Clean Air Act Exemption for Biomass Burners

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/biomass-08-15-2011.html

For Immediate Release, August 15, 2011
Contacts:

Kevin Bundy, Center for Biological Diversity, [phone] x 313
Jonathan Lewis, Clean Air Task Force, [phone]
Cat McCue, Southern Environmental Law Center, [phone]
Karen Wood, Conservation Law Foundation, [phone]

Lawsuit Challenges Clean Air Act Exemption for Biomass Burners

WASHINGTON— Conservation groups filed a lawsuit today challenging an Environmental Protection Agency rule that exempts large-scale biomass-burning facilities from carbon dioxide limits under the Clean Air Act for the next three years. The Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation, Georgia ForestWatch, Natural Resources Council of Maine and Wild Virginia are asking the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn the carbon dioxide exemption for wood-fired power plants and other “biomass” incinerators.

The EPA’s unlawful rule will cause immediate harm, as it will encourage a rush to build biomass power plants and other facilities without accounting for, or controlling, carbon pollution that contributes to global warming.

“The EPA’s action will in the near term increase carbon dioxide emissions that will persist in the earth’s atmosphere and cause climate damage for more than a century,” said Ann Weeks, an attorney at the Clean Air Task Force who represents Conservation Law Foundation and Natural Resources Council of Maine. “The EPA knows this will occur and is offering up a complete exemption from regulation despite that knowledge.”

“The EPA has no authority to just waive the Clean Air Act for the benefit of politically favored industries, as it has for the forest products and bioenergy industries here,” said Kevin Bundy, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “The science is clear: Burning our forests for energy makes no sense as a strategy for dealing with climate change. Widespread biomass development, which the EPA’s illegal exemption aims to facilitate, will undermine our ability to meet critical near-term greenhouse gas reduction goals and further degrade our nation’s forest ecosystems.”

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