August 26, 2021: Last week, Sierra Club, the Chaparral Coalition for Community Health and the Environment, and Earthworks reached an agreement with El Paso Electric (EPE), a major Texas utility company, that will substantially reduce air pollution in El Paso and Southern New Mexico. Sierra Club attorneys, alongside members of the Beyond Coal Campaign and Texas organizers, worked with local partners to reach a settlement with EPE containing significant concessions.
In exchange for these concessions, the Sierra Club and our allies agreed to withdraw our legal case challenging EPE’s application for an air permit for Newman 6, a new unit that EPE intends to construct at the Newman methane gas power plant. Although the Newman 6 plant will still be built, the settlement significantly reduces emissions, grants a community fund to the impacted communities, and binds the utility to a four-year moratorium on constructing new fossil fuel units, among other things. See the settlement agreement for more details.
Communities living near the plant are routinely subject to some of the worst air quality in Texas and New Mexico. While the stipulations of the settlement agreement vary in terms of direct impact, collectively they signal a new hope in the fight against fossil fuels-- though more work remains to be done. As local counsel David Baake stated, “This agreement is an important step towards achieving cleaner air in El Paso, even though far more needs to be done to reduce emissions in the El Paso area.” EPE has still decided to lock in years of fossil fuel consumption, despite its own experts showing that all-gas projects are more expensive than those that include any level of renewables.
This settlement is the product of countless hours of negotiations and communication, not only with EPE, but between Sierra Club, local partners, and the community. This win is a testament to the power of working together, from Sierra Club National, to Chapter organizers and legal advocacy, to grassroots campaigning. In the Newman settlement, Sierra Club was represented by Sierra Club attorneys Josh Smith, Matt Miller, and Dru Spiller, alongside local counsel Colin Cox of the Environmental Integrity Project and David Baake. This work was also supported by Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign representative Emma Pabst and ELP research analyst Lauren Hogrewe. In the litigation, we worked with Earthworks and several community members.
Read the full press release here!