Company: SOJE
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000092122-25-000018
Chunk: 2956

Company: SOUTHERN CO
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 5
Chunk 2956
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 of Mississippi and Mississippi Power challenged the FIP for Mississippi in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In August 2023, the State of Alabama, Alabama Power, and PowerSouth Energy Cooperative challenged the FIP for Alabama in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Both cases are being held in abeyance pending resolution of the Mississippi SIP disapproval and Alabama SIP disapproval cases, respectively. On June 27, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the FIP pending the disposition of petitions for review of the FIP in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and any petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court. On September 12, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted the EPA's motion for partial voluntary remand of the FIP to address the administrative record deficiencies preliminarily identified by the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 10, 2024, the EPA published its supplemental response to comments on the FIP which addresses the administrative record deficiencies. On February 6, 2025, the EPA filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit requesting a 60-day abeyance of the FIP challenges so that the new Trump Administration can determine how to proceed with the litigation.

In July and September 2023, the EPA published an Interim Final Rule and an updated Interim Final Rule that stays the implementation of the FIPs for states with judicially stayed SIP disapprovals, including Mississippi and Alabama, respectively. The Interim Final Rule revises the existing regulations to maintain currently applicable trading programs for those states.

The ultimate impact of the rule and associated legal matters cannot be determined at this time; however, implementation of the stayed FIPs may result in increased compliance costs.

Water Quality

In 2020, the EPA published the final steam electric ELG reconsideration rule (2020 ELG Rule), a reconsideration of the 2015 ELG rule's limits on bottom ash transport water and flue gas desulfurization wastewater that extended the latest applicability date for both discharges to December 31, 2025. The 2020 ELG Rule also updated the voluntary incentive program (VIP) and provided new subcategories for low utilization electric generating units and electric generating units that will permanently cease coal combustion by 2028. On May 9,