US EPA Sets Soot Pollution Rule, Energy Companies Warn of Costs

Tim McLaughlin

(Reuters) – The US environmental regulator said on Tuesday it sent the White House a final plan to cut interstate smog and soot pollution from the energy sector, but major energy companies warned the measure, due to be completed next month, cost them billions. dollars.

The plan, first proposed last year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), would require the energy industry to cut emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx, to curb the longstanding problem of power plant emissions polluting the air in other states, often in the hundreds. miles.

The EPA told Reuters that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) accepted the agency’s proposal for review on Feb. 9 and that a final rule is expected by March 23.

The EPA’s list for stricter rules has received more than 112,000 comments, including from industry heavyweights who say the EPA is underestimating the cost of implementation by billions of dollars.

Kinder Morgan Inc has warned that the plan will cost about $4.1 billion to upgrade and upgrade about 950 engines along its pipelines that transport about 40% of the natural gas consumed in the United States.

That estimate is 16 times higher than the EPA estimate, whose industry estimate would include fewer than 100 Kinder Morgan engines, the company said in a letter to the agency.

Kinder Morgan and other companies have also opposed the EPA’s 2026 deadline for completing upgrades.

“It will likely take at least 2045 to implement (the EPA proposal) for all engines that currently exceed the proposed emission limits,” the report said.

Kinder Morgan declined to comment on the story, and the EPA declined to comment on the company’s specific complaints.

NOx is a precursor form of pollution that reacts with sunlight to form other pollutants such as fine particulate matter and ground-level ozone. According to the EPA, fine particles and ozone-related pollution from power plants cause 8,000 premature deaths, tens of thousands of new cases of asthma, thousands of heart attacks and millions of lost school and work days every year.

The story goes on

The EPA proposal will extend to parts of the country not previously included in its interstate pollution reduction programs.

In Utah, coal-fired power plants operated by subsidiaries of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc will have to implement pollution controls that have been in place in other parts of the country for years.

PacifiCorp, a division of Berkshire Hathaway, said in a letter featured in the EPA dossier that the agency’s 2026 schedule is unreasonable and the work will cost it $2 billion, more than double the EPA’s estimate.

PacifiCorp’s Hunter Plant produced almost 8,500 tons of NOx emissions last year, the fifth-highest among coal-fired plants in the US, according to EPA emissions data.

The company said it hopes the final rule will address some of the industry’s concerns.

(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; editing by David Gregorio)

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