Frank fires back
(Editors’ note: The following letter is in response to the March 6 editorial, “Cocktails with Frank.)

Will,

Saw your recent snarky piece and would love to tell you a few things you forgot:

1) I have worked on a number of power plant-related issues and nearly every one of them has been a rational argument for finding and walking the fine line between growth, economics and environmental protection. There is a need to understand all sides of issues and find the right balance that will not only protect the environment, but meet community needs and protect its economy as well.

2) Before you go reading “Source watch” and take it as gospel, you should always check what else people work on. The climate group, when I worked with it (1998-2002), was widely recognized as credible business group that had a strong influence on the economic debate surrounding whether policies like the Kyoto Protocol would work or what they would cost. I think 10 years later, history has shown we were right about Kyoto. Also, I never did any work for the nuclear industry – although I would be happy to since Sen. Harry Reid doesn’t like me already anyway.

3) Perhaps you should investigate my involvement building wind turbine projects. In fact, by the number of quotes I have in the media, one might argue I have been more active on renewable projects than I even have been on Desert Rock or any coal power project. I suggested building wind turbines around the ridges of Durango just as we have in other regions to air permit and EIS meeting-goers, but surprisingly (not), I got a similar response as in those other places: “Not here”... Funny how that seems to happen.

4) I live within 15 miles of two big, coal-fired power plants, both of which are much closer than Desert Rock is to Durango. By the way, both are older than San Juan and Four Corners and have less emissions controls. Both of them are also close to the Chesapeake Bay, a relatively large, significant water resource ... even by Durango standards. By the way, my three small kids are growing up happy right here playing their sports, playing with friends, learning about the environment in our state. I think the power plants and car emissions (which are a much bigger problem here) may have affected their ability to hear though, because many times they don’t listen to me when I tell them to do things.

5) While I might have offered to buy you a beer, I don’t drink or smoke, so we wouldn’t be able to hang out and progress to heavier drinking. Sorry, not any particular reason, just never did. That way my judgment remains sound always.

6) I don’t drive Cadillacs .. .In fact I like to drive hybrids like the Prius – especially when I am on the road.

7) I do travel to Las Vegas often because, in fact, we are building another state-of-the-art, advanced coal plant just north of Las Vegas. I don’t think it’s my place to tell people how they ought to live, though. But certainly Las Vegas and the entire Southwest continues to grow rapidly and needs power. And it’s not just Las Vegas. St. George, Utah, is the second-fastest growing community by percentage in the U.S., according to recent census numbers. These power needs must be met. By the way, don’t gamble either. Just don’t like it.

8) Why shouldn’t the Navajos – who are aren’t as fortunate as those living in Durango – get opportunities to make a better life for their families as well. You might remember, the Nation will get hundreds of jobs, millions in revenue from taxes and royalties and new opportunities for economic development. It was their idea to do this project, and they invited us to help them build it better than any coal plant ever built before. I know nobody in Durango really cares about the Navajo Nation, but they should. Out of sight ... out of mind.

9) I’ve been to the plant site plenty of times ... have you? If not, I would recommend it. I think for the most part, you might find it to be a pretty darn good place to put a power plant – especially since it will have virtually no emissions of regional haze pollutants and use 85 percent less water than a typical plant (most of which goes to pollution control). And with the Navajo’s coal mine right next to the plant, not much use for trains, trucks or other items which have fuels costs and emissions as well.

10) Well, no smoking, drinking, gambling or girls. Sounds like your mapped out excursion might be pretty boring after all when you add me into it. Nothing but rational policy wonk talk and bragging on my kids’ sports, packed into a hybrid driving across the desert. At least we could get some Tony Hillerman novels on tape. I still have a few more to read (I love those books). Too bad you didn’t join us last time ... Anyway, the offer is still good.

– Sincerely, Frank Maisano spokesman, Desert Rock

Environmental lawyers make a concentrated effort to stop new ones from being built; a coalition claims 65 victories in the last year. But industry groups are fighting back.
By Judy Pasternak
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-coalwars14apr14,1,2805749.story

April 14, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Every time a new coal-fired power plant is proposed anywhere in the United States, a lawyer from the Sierra Club or an allied environmental group is assigned to stop it, by any bureaucratic or legal means necessary.

They might frame the battle as a matter of zoning or water use, but the larger war is over global warming: Coal puts twice as much temperature-raising carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as natural gas, second to coal as the most common power plant fuel.

The plant-by-plant strategy is part of a campaign by environmentalists to force the federal government to deal with climate change. The fights are scattered from Georgia to Wyoming, from Illinois to Texas, but the ultimate target is Washington, where the Bush administration has resisted placing limits on carbon dioxide and Congress has yet to act on a global warming bill.

The campaign against new coal-powered plants has infuriated utilities, which say the environmentalists' tactics are an abuse of the regulatory and judicial systems. They are counterpunching with ads, lobbying and court briefs of their own, bringing the clash over coal to a pitch that rivals the environmental and legal fights over nuclear power decades ago.

The environmental coalition, which includes the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Integrity Project, claims 65 victories over the last three years. The Sierra Club is coordinating opposition to about 50 additional power plant proposals.

"We have a national presence, so we're sort of mission control," said Pat Gallagher, director of the Sierra Club's environmental law program.

The goal: "We hope to clog up the system," said David Bookbinder, the Sierra Club's chief climate counsel. "It's putting pressure on Congress to put together a comprehensive plan."

Utilities and industry groups acknowledge that the environmentalists have been responsible for stopping some coal plants that otherwise would have been built. But the number is "nowhere near" 65, said Jeff Holmstead, a former EPA official who is now an industry lobbyist.

The partners in the anti-coal crusade are picking fights over any and all generators that use coal "regardless of merit," said Brendan Collins, a lawyer in Philadelphia who represents utilities and power plant developers. "They are doing it in a way that is unfair."

Since a meeting in Washington last summer, the partners in the anti-coal crusade have been focusing more squarely on carbon dioxide emissions in their local skirmishes, hoping to create precedents for dealing with a pollutant that is not federally regulated.

Their first high-profile victory came in Kansas last October, when state regulators denied a request by Sunflower Electric Co. for an air-quality permit for two 700-megawatt generators that would run on coal in the town of Holcomb.

The Sierra Club petitioned the state's health and environment secretary, Roderick L. Bremby, to deny the air-quality permit on grounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

"I believe it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing," Bremby said at the time.

Ever since, the state courts and Legislature have been haggling over coal and carbon dioxide in Kansas, and Sunflower has been unable to proceed.

Nick Persampieri, a Denver-based attorney for the environmental law firm Earthjustice, represents the Sierra Club in opposition to the Sunflower plant. He works closely with the Sierra Club's Kansas chapter. "You could argue that power plants harm everyone all over the country, but we always have somebody local to help us get standing" in court, he said.

Bookbinder is the Sierra Club's point man against a proposed power plant on tribal land in Utah, a case that shows the scope of the anti-coal push.

Usually he focuses on big-picture, national litigation from his Capitol Hill office. Bookbinder was one of the original petitioners in last spring's landmark Supreme Court decision that the EPA has authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. But when he found himself with a block of free time last fall, he told Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco, "I'll take a coal plant."

He received this mission: Halt a project by six electric cooperatives that run the Bonanza generator on the Uintah and Ouray Indian reservation. The co-ops, operating as Deseret Power, want to add a new unit with the capacity to manufacture 110 megawatts of electricity, about a fifth the capacity of the average power plant.

Bookbinder spied a big opportunity in the small project. Because the Bonanza plant is on property held in trust for Indians by the U.S. government, it was the Environmental Protection Agency, not a state, that issued the permit allowing the co-ops to proceed.

Bookbinder persuaded an administrative appeals board to consider overruling the EPA's permit on the grounds that it would vent more than 3 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year. Oral arguments are scheduled for late May, and a decision is expected near the end of the summer.

If Bookbinder is successful, a ruling would affect any project that comes before the EPA, which has permitting authority for power plants in eight states, all federally owned land, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Deseret's lawyer, Steffen N. Johnson, declined comment.

But this time, industry groups are jumping into the fray in a big way. "Where it's going to be precedential, we will be getting involved," said Russell Frye, who filed a half-inch-thick brief last month that supports the power plant on behalf of seven powerful trade associations, including the American Petroleum Institute, Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the American Chemistry Council and the National Assn. of Manufacturers.

Various business groups are discussing how to handle the environmentalists' challenges in a more comprehensive way, but industry sources said their members have such a wide range of positions on climate change that it's been difficult. Some suggest bringing conspiracy charges against the environmentalists if they can find instances in which the national groups recruited locals to allow them to file legal papers that they couldn't have filed otherwise. But "no one has the guts," said one industry lawyer.

Instead, Collins and two law partners wrote an article for the spring 2008 issue of the American Bar Assn.'s natural resources journal, advising clients to build in schedule and budget delays due to litigation -- because it is inevitable.

"It's good for lawyers. It's good for me," said Frye. "But it's not particularly constructive to have all these symbolic gestures that may gum up the works but won't necessarily advance what we as a society ought to be doing."

Stopping the Bonanza plant, he said, "might not give you more bang for the buck than controlling an existing source" of carbon dioxide emissions, "or replacing light bulbs."

Members of the environmental law brigade concede that stopping new plants may not be as effective in reducing emissions as getting the oldest, dirtiest, least efficient coal plants offline. Coal supplies half of America's electricity.

"We'll need to find a way to go after them, too," Persampieri said.

judy.pasternak@latimes.com