OPINION/COMMENTARY

Radical Greens Further Threaten U.S. Coal Industry

Nine liberal state attorneys general filed a Clean Air Act lawsuit against the Bush Administration that, if successful, would threaten America's energy security and send manufacturing jobs overseas. Led by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the group is challenging the Bush Administration's market-based program to reduce mercury emissions from power plants, instead demanding a judge-imposed, command-and-control regulation that would force many Midwestern coal plants to shut down. The lawsuit was filed last week in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by the attorneys general of New Jersey, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. With enthusiastic support from radical environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the group seeks to force individual coal plants to reduce mercury emissions 90 percent in 3 years, regardless of coal type or plant configuration--an impossible standard to meet with existing technologies. The only way to meet that standard, according to coal industry experts, is to shut down coal fired plants, which supply 52 percent of the nation's electricity....

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