Alabama power wins EPA lawsuit

A federal court in Birmingham, Alabama has ruled in favour of Alabama Power in a 10 year old dispute with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), arguing that the agency’s methodology was not valid. EPA had initially argued that eight maintenance projects performed at four of the utility’s coal-fired power plants between 1985 and 1997, altered them to the point that new environmental permits were required, but was forced to drop claims on five of the projects last year. Alabama power claims to have spent over US$2.5bn on emission controls for its coal-fired power plants over the past decade. The Southern Environmental Law Centre’s (SELC) attorney Bian Holman has said that: “We respectively disagree with the court’s ruling and expect to appeal.”