It isn’t just the oil sector that uses "rubber stamp approval" mechanisms from government agencies. The local electric power utility companies conduct business in the same manner as BP to push through their objectives... oftentimes at odds with what is best for consumers and taxpayers.
Here in Lexington, we have been fighting the Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) decision to build a new coal-fired plant in an adjoining county. The plans were to build on the Kentucky River just upstream of Lexington’s source of drinking water. The coal-fired plant intends to store coal ash on-site... storing huge volumes (16.6 Million cubic yards over time) of coal ash waste on the ground just upstream of both Lexington and Winchester’s water supply intakes. During the first 12 years, EKPC will not even apply for a landfill permit, "but will instead use coal ash as structural fill dumping it into wetlands and streams near the Kentucky River."
Fortunately, for now, we have won two battles (though not the war). The EPA objected to the KY Division of Air Quality’s section of the permit dealing with fine particle emissions at the proposed coal-fired plant. So the AQ division at the state has 90 days to satisfy the EPA objections or the permit could be denied.
And just last week, the Sierra Club and EarthJustice filed suit to challenge the decision by the federal Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to give rubber stamp approval to the EKPC plant to waive the debt obligations and inflict yet another rate increase on taxpayers to continue to pay for bad decisions of antiquated energy products. As is noted, EKPC already owes $1.3 billion in debt for older power plants with $1 billion of that debt guaranteed by taxpayers.
On June 15, 2010 environmental organizations challenged a decision by the federal Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to allow the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) to waive federal debt obligations and seek private financing for a new 278-MW coal-fired power plant at the Smith Station in Clark County, Kentucky. The Sierra Club and Kentuckians For The Commonwealth are represented by Earthjustice.
As of June 2010 the company owed over $1.3 billion for its older power plants; more than $1 billion of this debt is held, or guaranteed, by the Rural Utilities Service as well as taxpayers. Earthjustice argued that RUS failed to consider the environmental impacts of the proposed plant before granting the its funding lien. As such, the groups argued that RUS is in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act. The failure to consider the environmental consequences of the lien accommodation also violates the Rural Electrification Act.
"Coal plants are financially risky in today’s market, especially given the host of new pollution regulations in the pipeline," said Tom Sanzillo, Senior Associate of TR Rose Associates, a New York based financial consulting firm (and author of an April 2009 report of the credit condition at EKPC). "Recognizing this, RUS has stopped putting federal dollars at risk into new coal plants. Yet the agency continues to rubber stamp approval for cooperatives like EKPC to get deeper in debt and to assume ratepayers will continue to pay endless rate increases for bad deals."
It’s time we demand alternative resource management with clean energy instead of ponying up our taxpayer dollars for these bad decisions with dirty energy sources.
The same thing is happening in your local neighborhood. Join your local Sierra Club group and join up as a Water Watch Volunteer to help monitor the conditions of your community water sources. Meet lots of cool people, have picnics and dinners at good-eats places where you can talk shop with folks of a like mind. Your community could use your helping hand from time to time... and it’s not time consuming yet makes a big difference.
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Now it’s on to the TOP COMMENTS OF THE DAY submitted from our Kossack readers today in the Top Comments’ mailbox... TYVM to everyone who sent in these excellent comments!
From mdmslle:
heh... nonnie9999 comes up with a new adjective descriptive of the Republicans in the Diary Rescue diary.
From JanF:
This comment from Otteray Scribe in winterbanyan's moving story of her father's service in World War II and how it changed him, reminds us of some of the history of that time and how it was "it was about the buddies, not abstractions."
From winterbanyan:
NCrissieB writes an interesting comment on the way WWII may have affected our national policy making in the decades since in winterbanyan's Morning Feature: Echoes of war.
[Note from diarist: winterbanyan's diary contained many poignant and personal stories. It touched a lot of people.]
From missississy:
This comment by GANJA in Chris Rodda's diary No, Mr. Beck, Jefferson Did Not Date His Documents "In the Year of Our Lord Christ" sums up the founding fathers' religion revisionism very well.
From Angie in WA State:
This comment by DallasDoc in bobswern's diary Main STreet's still Dying while Geithner's Still Lying points out, oh, so eloquently, the big problem in Washington D.C.
There is no real economic recovery. It's all smoke and mirrors.
What happens when the smoke clears and the mirrors break?
From luckylizard:
This comment by greendem in Chico David RN's diary Meg Whitman Declares War on Nurses was a good sound bite.
From voracious:
This comment by JohnGor0 has had me laughing for 15 minutes. You have to read the diary to get it, but it really provided some much needed humor during a time when the top diary on the rec list featured a picture of the oil-soaked gulf.
From bronte17 (tonight’s diarist):
This Thanks to jotter from Gorette is an honorable way to show appreciation to the peripheral networks and interconnections of our participation here and jotter’s HID diaries bring these stats to us daily. Gorette earns the Classy Kossack of the Day award.
blue jersey mom has a great Roman chicken and leek recipe for the next troll diary in Ojibwa’s diary Ancient America : Aztec Pueblo... and the thread erupts thereafter...
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