CO2 rules still in the air (Nevada coal plants)

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/nov/03/566676442.html

Conspicuously absent from a draft air permit Nevada's Environmental Protection Division approved this week were two words: carbon dioxide.

Although the large coal-burning power plant proposed for eastern Nevada will emit 10 million tons of the stuff - a greenhouse gas the division has the right to limit under state law - carbon is not even a consideration. Officials have said it will take months, maybe years, to cobble together regulations.

Meanwhile, both a final air permit for the largest of the three plants proposed for rural Nevada and a draft permit for a smaller plant are imminent.

As the air quality regulatory process marches forward in Nevada - sans regulation - other states are taking steps to call carbon out as an air pollutant that contributes to global warming and puts their residents at risk. Think rising seas in Massachusetts, wildfires in California, a swirling dust bowl in Kansas.

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