Coal Ash Wednesday: DENR putting the brakes on cleanup

Citing the costs of remediation as their main concern:

North Carolina’s environment agency asked Tuesday that its own enforcement cases over Duke Energy coal ash practices at 10 power plants be put on hold. “A stay of these proceedings will ensure careful consideration of each of these factors, including the economic impacts of the proposed manner of closure, during the process for approval of closure plans,” DENR’s motions said.

The coal ash law requires that the potential costs to consumers be considered in closing the ponds. Duke’s current cleanup estimate is $3.5 billion and has said it will ask permission to pass costs to customers. DENR cites an earlier estimate of up to $10 billion.

This is a classic Republican-engineered situation: You craft a piece of legislation that sounds good but is embedded with a self-destruct mechanism. In this case, it's the costs associated with doing what must be done. If the GOP had been serious about its concerns for ratepayers, they could have easily fixed that before passing the bill:

http://ift.tt/1ED1jad