However, even amidst this beauty, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is focused on the haze in the national park and says it is coming from a very important electricity source in the area.
The Navajo Generating Station (NGS), a coal-fired power plant that supplies electricity for the 14 pumping stations required to move water to southern Arizona?to about 80 percent of the state's population?is being blamed for creating poor air quality in the national park.
Currently, this power plant meets all federal clean air guidelines?except the EPA's interpretation of the Regional Haze Rule.
The goal of the EPA's Regional Haze Rule is the "remedying of any existing impairment of visibility" at 156 National Park and Wilderness areas throughout the U.S. Congress approved of this amendment to the Clean Air Act in 1977, however, power to set standards of emissions was left to the states?not the EPA. The EPA's role was to simply provide support.
Now the EPA seems to be trampling on the state's authority to control emissions standards by creating its own set of standards. Is the EPA really that concerned about cleaning up haze or is this just another aggressive move to push out the coal industry?
If the EPA decides that the NGS power plant needs additional emissions control technology, owners of the power plant can expect to invest $1.1 billion, with no promise of improved air quality in the national park.
Furthermore, the plant is located on land owned by the Navajo Nation. Its long-term lease with the tribe expires in 2019. If the power plant operators can't guarantee a renewed lease beyond 2019, investing more than $1 billion into the plant isn't a viable option. Depending on the EPA ruling, NGS might shutdown?costing 1,000 jobs, 90 percent of them belonging to the Navajo tribe.
Not only would this hurt the local economy, already plagued with high unemployment, but it would effectively destroy the water source to southern Arizona?leading to skyrocketing water rates.
How does the EPA get away with destroying communities like this one?
A political game. It is no secret that many environmental groups ally with the EPA. But what if these groups don't think the EPA is doing its job or going far enough? They sue. The EPA then settles agreeing to fix the problem. Therefore a court-imposed deadline on the EPA leaves it with no other option but to override the state's regulations and enforce its own controls.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a report titled, "EPA's New Regulatory Front: Regional Haze and the Takeover of State Programs," highlights how the EPA, along with court-mandated deadlines, has wheedled its way into state territory by delaying state plans for emission control.
"By combining this tactic of delaying approval of the state plans with Sue and Settle and a court-imposed deadline to act, EPA has manufactured a loophole to provide itself with the ability to reach into the state haze decision-making process and supplant the state as decision maker. EPA has, effectively, engineered a way to get around the protections of state primacy built into the Regional Haze statute by Congress."
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