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Sierra Club Lawsuits

Raising the Bar on Power Plant Pollution

Case Updates:

March 5, 2004

New power plants will have to meet stricter clean air standards, thanks to a court decree filed in late 2003 that settles a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club against the Bush administration. According to the decree, the Bush administration must develop and enforce stronger pollution control standards for new power plants within two years. This will have important consequences for the flood of new power plants expected to be constructed over the next decade. Sierra Club sued EPA in February of 2003 because EPA has failed to update pollution standards for new power plants as required by the federal Clean Air Act. EPA has not updated the standards, allowing new power plants to use 20-year old technology. This lapse has allowed new power plants to spew hundreds of thousands of tons of additional pollutants into the air that new technology could have prevented.

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