A sharply divided Board of Environmental Protection voted Thursday to scrap a proposal that would let a big power plant in southern Maine forgo some on-site reductions in its own pollution by paying for cuts elsewhere. The vote to effectively block emissions trading for the Wyman Station plant in Yarmouth was 5-4.
Emissions trading allows plants that pollute more to buy credits from cleaner-burning facilities.
We re right back to square one, said Allen Wiley, a spokesman for FPL Energy, the plant s owner. The BEP set aside 30 days for public comment on a stricter proposal, most of which was first debated last winter, that would not allow purchasing credits. The board s action was in some measure merely procedural in that it served to extend what has already amounted to months of discussions. But activists with the Natural Resources Council of Maine, who had advocated adoption of the original proposal and denounced the emissions trading amendment advanced by the Department of Environmental Protection, expressed satisfaction with Thursday s board vote. I think this is a very positive move, said Sue Jones, director of the NRCM s air quality project.