Telephone 919 - 967 - 1450 601 WEST ROSEMARY STREET, SUITE 220 Facsimile 919 - 929 - 942 1 CHAPEL HILL, NC 27516 - 2356

___________ Good afternoon. M y name is Myra Blake, and I am an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center , representing the Fall

- Line Alliance for a Clean Environment, the Ogeechee Riverkeeper, and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
. SELC is a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization dedicated to protecting clean air and water and to promoting healthy, livable communities in the Southeast
. As a general matter, we applaud EPA’s efforts to regulate greenhouse ga s emissions from pow er plants. But we are concerned with EPA’s proposal to create a category of “ transitional sources” that will be exempt from the standards in the GHG rule if they “commence construction” within 12 months of publication of the proposal in the Fe deral Regist er. While we have concerns about the legality of the transitional source exemption, I will limit my comments today to why one of the potential transitional sources, Plant Washington , does not meet the qualifications for this categorization. Plant Washington is a proposed 850 MW coal plant that Power4Ge orgians is seeking to develop. The facility should not be exempted for three reasons. First, Plant Washington does not meet the defini tion of a transitional source; s econd, Plant Washington do es not fit the rationale for the exemption; an d t hird, the exemption encourages facilities that are unnecessary and not fully conceived, such as Plant Washington , to be rushed into construction.
The proposed rule defines a transitional source as a source “ that received a complete permit that meets the requirements of the Prevention of Significant Deterioration Program . . . prior to April 13, 2012.” E ven assuming that EPA ha s the authority to exempt transitiona l sources, Pl ant Washington does not meet this definition. EPA listed Plant Washington as a potential transition al source in t h e proposed rule because at that time EPA did not know whether2 Plant Washington had received a complete air permit
. But it has since become clear that Plant Washington di d not have a complete pe rmit by April 13, and has not received a complete permit to date
. Plant Washington’s air permit is currently undergoing administrative amendments because previous versions of the permit did not comply with the Clean Air Act
. EPA has acknowledged this in a recent briefing before the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, in which Power4Georgians is seeking to invalidate the EPA’s MATS requirements for ne w sources. In short, P4G did not have authorization to build or operate Plan t Washington as of the April 13 deadline
. Second, Plant Washington does not even fit EPA’s rationale for e xe mpting transitional
sources because it is not a fully formed project poised to commence construction . P4G has not made significant expenditures on the plant or advances in its design
. Many key elements of Plant Washington remain “to be de termined,” including the design features of most of its emissions sources and emission control devices , such as the selective catalytic reduction system, the scr ubber, the baghouse, and even many components of the boiler itself
. And although P4G claims that it has spent $30 million on Plant Washington, P4G has not provid ed evidence to verify this amount . T here is no indication that P4G has contract ed for any supporting systems or for the sale of elect ricity, and it does not appear that P4G has even purchased any property on which to build P lant Washington. And even if P4G has spent what it claims, this is less than 1.5% percent of its total projected costs of over 2.1 billion
. In addition, the majority of Plant Washington’s funders have pulled out , and P4G has not been able to attract other investors because it has not demonstrated that the project is necessary to meet energy needs or will be able to compete with existing energy sources
. Moreover, P4G has stated , contrary to previous3 assertions, that it never intended to build or operate Plant Washington. In sum, P4G is nowhere
near ready to construct Plant Washington. Finally, t he requirement to commence construction within 12 months only encourages unnecessary facilities like Plant Washington t o be rushed into construction. In the past sources have gamed the definition of “commencing construction” by taking minor actions such as pouring concrete. As such, the requirement to “commence construction” within 12 months does not serve as a good surrogate to ensure that only facilities with significant sunk costs are exempted
. If Plant Washington is classified as a transitional source in the final rule, P4G would have a perverse incentive to ex pend additional resources and hasten efforts to “commence construc tion” on this half

- baked project , all in an effort to do precisely what Congress sought to avoid

– evade complying with protective New Source Perform ance Standards.
All of this matters because Plant Washington wil l emit significant quantities of carbon dioxide. To put it in perspective, Plant Washington will emit m ore CO2 than roughly half the countries in the world individually . This would undermine President Obama’s promise to reduce GHG emissions by 17% of 2005 levels by 2020
. In conclusion, Plant Washington should not be exempted from the greenhouse gas rule.