A long-standing EPA program aimed at cleaning up haze-forming air pollution in national parks shouldn’t be used to shutter power plants that are a leading source of clouded vistas, according to agency air chief Aaron Szabo.
Since 2019, Szabo wrote in a newly released memo urging state regulators to consider electric grid reliability when assembling long-term haze reduction plans, “EPA has seen significant increases in electricity demand and strain” on grid reliability. Consequently, the agency “does not support states encouraging or forcing an electric generating facility to close in order to comply with the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) regional haze requirements,” he continued.
While nonbinding, the guidance continues the Trump administration’s push to shield the power industry from the haze program’s goal of returning unclouded natural visibility to the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and more than 150 other national parks and wilderness areas by 2064.
Under President Donald Trump, EPA is fighting several lawsuits that contest a policy change adopted last year at the prompting of a West Virginia power producer that weakened the yardstick for deciding whether states are making adequate progress to that target. Seemingly undeterred, the agency last month rejected Colorado’s latest haze reduction plan, in part because it sought to lock in the “unconsented source closure” of a coal-fired generating unit.
