{"id":15018,"date":"2013-07-08T14:47:57","date_gmt":"2013-07-08T19:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=15018"},"modified":"2013-07-08T16:11:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-08T21:11:13","slug":"the-epa-is-suing-oklahoma-gas-electric-over-its-power-plant-emission-estimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/07\/08\/the-epa-is-suing-oklahoma-gas-electric-over-its-power-plant-emission-estimates\/","title":{"rendered":"The EPA is Suing Oklahoma Gas &#038; Electric Over Its Power Plant Emission Estimates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"embed-documentcloud\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<div class=\"DC-embed DC-embed-document DV-container\">\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:129.4444444444444%;height:0;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;\"> <iframe src=\"\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/724922-usa-v-og-amp-e.html?embed=true&responsive=false&sidebar=false\" title=\"USA v. OG&amp;E (Hosted by DocumentCloud)\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:1px solid #aaa;border-bottom:0;box-sizing:border-box;\"><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><p>The federal government on Monday filed a lawsuit against Oklahoma Gas & Electric, accusing the electric utility of violating the Clean Air Act by improperly estimating the amount of\u00a0emissions\u00a0that could come from upgrades at two coal-fired power plants.<\/p><p>A copy of the government&#8217;s complaint, which was made through the Environmental Protection Agency, is included above.<\/p><p><!--more--><\/p><p>In its lawsuit, the Environmental Protection Agency says OG&E failed to properly estimate future emission increases before starting upgrade projects at its\u00a0Muskogee plant in Fort Gibson and its Sooner plant in Red Rock between 2003 and 2006. The EPA in November 2011 sent\u00a0OG&E a formal &#8220;notice of violation,&#8221; the lawsuit states.<\/p><p>&#8220;This assessment must occur before construction on a proposed project is undertaken,&#8221; Robert Dreher, an acting Assistant Attorney General writes in the complaint:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>OG&E performed numerous projects at its Muskogee and Sooner facilities without properly assessing the impact those projects would have on the plants\u2019 future emissions. The analyses performed by OG&E at the time are legally insufficient &#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote><p>OG&E spokesman Brian Alford says the utility followed proper procedures.<\/p><p>&#8220;Actual monitored data indicates that emissions did not increase as a result of the work performed,&#8221; Alford tells StateImpact.<\/p><p>OG&E is preparing a formal\u00a0response\u00a0to the lawsuit, but Alford says the utility likely has a different\u00a0interpretation\u00a0of the regulation it&#8217;s accused of violating.<\/p><p>In June, the Oklahoma chapter of the Sierra Club issued a report that was <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2013\/07\/01\/sierra-club-says-oge-coal-plants-spew-too-much-sulfur-dioxide\/\">critical of OG&E and its two coal-fired plants<\/a>, which the environmental group says endangers Oklahomans with harmful sulfur dioxide\u00a0emissions. Emissions at the power plants are under legal limits, but are likely to violate future clean air standards, the <a href=\"http:\/\/http\/\/newsok.com\/article\/3856976\">group told<\/a> <em>The Oklahoman<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The federal government on Monday filed a lawsuit against Oklahoma Gas &#038; Electric, accusing the electric utility of violating the Clean Air Act by improperly estimating the amount of\u00a0emissions\u00a0that could come from upgrades at two coal-fired power plants.A copy of the government&#8217;s complaint, which was made through the Environmental Protection Agency, is included above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490,491],"tags":[532,499,525,545],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15018"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15025,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15018\/revisions\/15025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}