State Sen. Ray Aguilar of Grand Island said the payment is part of a deal in which the city is to pay the back fees, and in return, the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee will advance a bill to the full Legislature to lower the emissions fees assessed against small power plants in the future. But he pointed out that the city has recourse if the Legislature doesn't approve of lowering the emissions fees. City Attorney Charlie Cuypers said the city council must approve paying the claim to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality. The council is scheduled to consider the payment at its March 13 regular meeting. The back payment stems from a dispute the city has had with the DEQ on what fee level applied to Grand Island.
Power generators pay emissions fees for generating electricity with coal.
That money funds the state's clean air quality program. Before 1996, all utilities paid fees up to a cap of 4,000 tons for each pollutant emitted. In 1996, then state Sen. Ardyce Bohlke of Hastings was successful in passing a cap of 400 tons per pollutant for smaller, municipally owned power plants such as those in Hastings, Grand Island and Fremont. Bohlke's bill also required that the Legislature set a new fee schedule, but that was never done. Grand Island officials have argued that, because the new fee level was never set, the 400-ton level was in effect.