American Electric Power Utility Company Agrees to Record Settlement

A coal-fired energy company named as the country's top industrial polluter has agreed to a record-breaking $4.6 billion settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), eight states and 13 environmental groups, according to news from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Under the agreement, American Electric Power (AEP) has pledged to spend $4.6 billion on pollution-control measures at the 16 plants covered by the settlement. The improvements are expected to reduce the plants' sulfur dioxide emissions by 79 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions by 69 percent. The company has also agreed to invest an additional $60 million to convert high-polluting trucks and barges to low-sulfur diesel fuel, and will pay a $15 million civil penalty.

The civil penalty is the highest ever paid by an electric utility in an EPA case involving its New Source Review permitting program, part of the 1977 Clean Air Act.

"Today's historic settlement not only holds AEP accountable, but also puts big polluters on notice that they can no longer run and hide from their actions or circumvent the Clean Air Act," said John Walke, director of NRDC's Clean Air Program. "The size of the settlement means that we will be able to keep 813,000 tons of harmful pollution out of the atmosphere, improving air quality and public health around these plants and beyond."

"This is an important first step toward reducing the disproportionate air pollution burden that is placed on residents of the Ohio River Valley," added Shannon Fisk, an attorney in NRDC's Midwest office. "With today's settlement, a new day has dawned in the region and cleaner air will soon follow."

Based in Columbus, Ohio, AEP operates 25 coal-fired electric plants around the country. According to the NRDC, data from 2004 pegged AEP as the nation's number one industrial emitter of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide pollution.

The NRDC filed suit against AEP in 1999 for Clean Air Act violations. It charged the company had upgraded several of its plants without installing the federally mandated pollution controls.

Others lodging similar complaints against AEP included the EPA, which filed the first suit; the states of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont; and a dozen environmental groups: the Citizen Action Coalition of Indiana, the Clean Air Council, the Hoosier Environmental Council, the Indiana Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League of America, the League of Ohio Sportsmen, the National Wildlife Federation, Ohio Citizen Action, the Ohio Valley Environmental Council, the Sierra Club, U.S.PIRG, and the West Virginia Environmental Council.

Natural Resources Defense Council, "Record-Breaking $4.6 Billion Clean Air Act Settlement Announced." URL: (http://www.nrdc.org/media/2007/071009.asp)