Home > Environmental Law Home > Lawsuits > Sierra Club and allies win long, hard fight against Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal-fired power plant in North Carolina

Sierra Club Lawsuits

Sierra Club and allies win long, hard fight against Duke Energy’s Cliffside coal-fired power plant in North Carolina

Case Updates:

December 3, 2008

On December 2, 2008, Sierra Club and our allies won a major victory against Duke Energy after federal judge Lacy Thornburg ruled that Duke was in violation of the Clean Air Act (CAA) for failing to adequately regulate toxic air pollution from its proposed Cliffside Unit 6. The judge ruled that under the CAA, Duke is required to perform a Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) analysis to determine how to control mercury and other hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from the proposed unit. Duke has sixty days to complete its analysis, but has stated it will appeal the decision.

Duke Energy initially obtained its air permit for the new unit under the Bush administration’s Clean Air Mercury Rule, a cap and trade program put in place to regulate HAPs from industrial sources that oddly exempted coal-fired plants (the dirtiest polluters) from having to control their toxic air pollutant emissions. Fortunately, federal judges struck down Bush’s mercury rule in February 2008, thus requiring all new coal plant facilities to regulate their HAP emissions, which Duke repeatedly refused to do.

This is the first ruling in the nation that holds that a new facility – one that received its permit and began construction before the court struck down the mercury rule in February – must comply with the MACT requirements of the CAA and it will have far-reaching implications across the country. New coal-fired facilities, regardless of when their air permit was issued, are now required to control their HAP emissions to the maximum extent possible.

December 5, 2008

Details and Documents:

Case Documents:

Memorandum and Order of Judge Lacy Thornburg
December 2, 2008, U.S. District Court of North Carolina