SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says federal officials will reconsider a 2016 plan requiring pollution controls at two of Utah’s oldest coal-fired power plants.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt made the announcement Tuesday while visiting Salt Lake City and meeting with Republican Gov. Gary Herbert.
President Barack Obama’s administration issued the plan last year requiring the plants to put in new equipment to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions causing haze at nearby national parks in eastern Utah.
Environmental group say the controls are needed to cut emissions but Utah and Rocky Mountain Power sued the EPA to stop the plan, saying utility customers would bear the $700 million cost of the changes and a state plan to reduce haze was already working.
Pruitt says he’s going to let Utah study the pollution’s impacts and let the state have a voice.
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