Law Center Appealing Commission’s Ruling on Power Plant

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An environmental organization is appealing the recent State Corporation Commission ruling that gave Dominion Virginia Power permission to build a $1.8 billion coal-fired plant in St. Paul.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, based in Charlottesville, is representing several groups opposed to the plant, including Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards, Appalachian Voices, the Sierra Club and the Chesapeake Climate Action Network.
SELC attorney Cale Jaffe said on Monday the organization plans to argue that the state law the SCC used in granting the certificate of need violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The law – approved by the Virginia General Assembly in 2004 – stated that building a coal-fired power plant in Virginia’s coalfields is in the best interest of the public. The SCC normally makes that determination. In its ruling, the SCC said the legislature made consideration of best public interest moot in the Dominion plant’s case.
Jaffe said the SCC ruling should be overturned because it is basically void.
Dominion spokesman Dan Genest said on Monday that Dominion’s attorneys have studied the issues raised by the SELC and do not believe there is a problem.
“The SELC had indicated that they were going to take this step so, therefore, this does not come as a surprise,” Genest said of the appeal. “Furthermore, the Virginia State Corporation Commission judges addressed the SELC’s concerns about constitutionality in its order approving the power station, and they dismissed SELC’s claims.”
SELC also filed a lengthy document with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality regarding a mercury pollution permit application for Dominion’s plant. Jaffe said the draft permit is illegal because it has a “built-in out clause” that would let Dominion exceed mercury emission limits if it sees fit.
Genest said Dominion has not seen the law center’s DEQ filing and had no comment on the mercury issue.
The mercury levels became an issue when the federal appeals court ruled in February that the Bush administration’s mercury rule was not legal. Dominion opted to file another permit application with the DEQ, which could meet mercury guidelines in light of the court ruling.
Jaffe said the DEQ previously issued a draft air permit for the plant that said mercury emissions would be 72 pounds per year. He said the levels for the Wise Plant are more than for a 60-year-old coal-fired plant near the Potomac River.
Dominion’s newest draft permit drops the mercury level to 49 pounds per year, but Jaffe said the company could exceed that level because of its “out” clause, which says Dominion could exceed the limit if the company decides it is technically unachievable.
According to the SELC, the Wise County plant would emit more mercury in the air than almost all new coal-fired power plants. 
Dominion needs approval from the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board before it can begin construction of its proposed plant. The air board could consider the permit during its meeting next month.
Plant supporters say the facility would create jobs and pump $6 million in additional revenue into Wise County annually, but opponents say pollution from the plant would not be worth the economic boost.
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