Group files suit to block coal plant
Billings Gazette
Monday July 23, 2007
An environmental group filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to
block public financing of a coal-fired power plant near Great Falls
because of its potential to exacerbate global warming, pollute
surrounding communities and degrade a historic trail.
With seven more coal plants nationwide up for similar rural
development loans, an attorney for the group Earthjustice said she
hoped the challenge to the Montana plant will scuttle the entire
U.S. Department of Agriculture program.
"The federal government should be the last source of funding for
coal plants. These are projects that even Wall Street is turning
its back on," said Abigail Dillen, the lead attorney in the suit
filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The other plants are in Wyoming, Missouri, Iowa, Florida,
Oklahoma and two in Kentucky.
The USDA's Rural Utilities Service in May gave a regulatory
green light to Montana's 250-megawatt Highwood Generating Station
to be built near the Missouri River along the Lewis and Clark
National Historic Trail by the Southern Montana Electric
cooperative. It would deliver electricity to 120,000 residents of
Montana and market surplus power to out-of-state customers.
The USDA is in the final steps of issuing a loan covering 85
percent of the plant's estimated $700 million price tag. Rural
Utilities Service spokeswoman Anne Mayberry said the agency had
received the lawsuit but it was still under review.
Environmentalists sue over coal plant
Billings Gazette
July 1, 2008
GREAT FALLS - Two environmental groups sued the Montana
Department of Environmental Quality on Monday, alleging that the
state has failed to limit greenhouse gas emissions in an air permit
for a proposed coal-fired power plant east of Great Falls.
The lawsuit was filed in Cascade County District Court by the
Montana Environmental Information Center and Citizens for Clean
Energy.
The groups ask the court to invalidate the air quality permit
for the Highwood Generating Station and to require a study to limit
carbon dioxide emissions under state and federal air-quality laws.
It also seeks an injunction prohibiting construction until a new
air-quality permit is in place with specific carbon dioxide
limits.
"We need to try to slow, stop and reverse global warming, and
this is a step in that direction," said Jim Jensen, executive
director of the MEIC.
In May, the Montana Board of Environmental Review rejected the
same argument made in Monday's lawsuit - that carbon dioxide, like
other pollutants, is subject to a "best available control
technology" (BACT) study to limit carbon emissions under state and
federal air-quality laws.