Ark. environmental chief backs delay in air rules

The state's top anti-pollution official said utilities that operate power plants in Arkansas should be allowed to wait and see what air-quality standards are imposed by federal authorities, instead of meeting a current 2013 deadline for complying with emission rules.

Teresa Marks, director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, said in a news release Friday that she is recommending that the state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission grant a variance from the state's current Oct. 15, 2013, deadline for meeting emissions requirements based on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Regional Haze Rule.

The PC&E Commission supervises the Department of Environmental Quality.

The problem for utilities, the news release said, is that EPA has not yet acted on the state rules, and could set stiffer standards than those now set out in state regulations.

Marks acknowledged "some uncertainty" over whether the utilities would be required to comply with existing emission limits or tougher ones to be set by the EPA.

"It would be impractical to require these companies to update their facilities before definitive limits are set," she said.

The release said three major utilities × Entergy Arkansas, the state's largest supplier of electricity; Southwestern Electric Power Company Inc., a unit of American Electric Power; and Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. × had asked the department to grant them a variance from the 2013 deadline. If that variance is granted, it would delay the companies' deadline until a date no later than five years after the EPA approves Arkansas' plans for implementing the emissions rule.

EPA has taken no action on the state's plan, the release said, and there is no time frame for approval or disapproval.

State law allows the PC&E Commission to grant a variance from a regulation if strict compliance would be "unreasonable, unduly burdensome or impractical" because of special conditions, according to the release.

Entergy welcomed the announcement.

Marks' recommendation is "the most logical way to address this problem," said Entergy spokesman James Thompson.

The utilities' request for a variance, and Marks' proposal to grant it, could be considered at the next PC&E meeting, scheduled for Jan. 22.

The department's news release said that, if the variance is granted, the agency would suspend a review currently under way of a proposed modification to the air permit for Entergy's White Bluff coal-fired power plant in Redfield.