(ALBUQUERQUE)---Attorney General Gary King today filed a motion with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Appeals Board, asking it to accept new evidence that shows the permitting process for the proposed coal-fired power plant did not take into account ozone pollution levels that are already above federal air quality standards.

"October ozone levels have now pushed the region in which Desert Rock would be built into non-attainment status of acceptable federal ozone levels," says Attorney General King. "On top of that news, the National Park Service has submitted new information to EPA Region IX showing that ozone impacts from the oil and gas industry are significantly higher than the impacts Region IX had assumed in its Desert Rock ozone analysis."

The AG's motion to supplement the record states: "Because this new information definitively shows that EPA's determination that Desert Rock would not "cause or contribute" to ozone non-attainment clearly erroneous, the Board should consider the information in this appeal. The Board cannot fully and fairly evaluate the ozone issues raised in the Desert Rock petitions without taking this significant new ozone information into account. As an alternative, the Board should remand the permit to EPA now to address the substantial new questions raised by the ozone information and to reopen the public comment period as to this issue."

 

It is the position of the Attorney General's Office that Desert Rock's emissions will necessarily "cause, or contribute to, air pollution in excess of any…national ambient air quality standard" in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 7475(a)(3). New Mexico should not bear the burden of reducing ozone levels that are unduly exacerbated as a result of EPA's error.