Sierra Club Hindering Change from Coal to Natural Gas

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In what can only be described as idiotic, the Sierra Club is actively preventing utility companies from converting electrical generating plants from coal to natural gas—because they don’t like fracking. This kind of stuff has to stop.

Because the Sierra Club does not support power plant owners turning to natural gas as an alternative to coal-fired generation, the environmental group is hindering generators’ ability to reach deals with the US Environmental Protection Agency on compliance with agency air rules, attorney Karl Karg said Monday.

Karg, who has utility clients going through various EPA compliance proceedings, said the Sierra Club is holding up the completion of settlements because its position is different than EPA’s, which has supported plant owners turning to gas-fired generation.

EPA has endorsed such settlements, but because the Sierra Club has a "Beyond Natural Gas" campaign and generally opposes adding more gas-fired generation because of its concerns over emissions and hydraulic fracturing, utilities are having difficulties reaching settlements with EPA, Karg said at a Platts’ conference in Washington Monday.*

MDN says let’s start a “Beyond the Sierra Club” campaign!

Read the rest of this interesting Platts article by clicking the link below.

*Platts News (May 21, 2012) – Sierra Club hindering settlements between EPA and generators: lawyer