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High Court Hears Argument On Power Plants : NPR

High Court Hears Argument On Power Plants
npr by Nina Totenberg

All Things Considered, December 2, 2008 · Utilities want the Supreme Court to reinstate a Bush administration regulation that was overturned by lower courts. The regulation allowed utilities to consider the cost of the cleanest technology and not install it if fails a cost-benefit analysis.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears an important environmental case Tuesday, testing whether utilities must use the best technology available to minimize harm to the nation’s waterways. At issue is the physical impact on fish and the financial impact on companies.

The nation’s 550 power plants use water — lots of water in some instances — that comes from lakes and rivers. Each day, more than 214 billion gallons of water is sucked into power plants across the country. That’s tens of trillions of gallons each year.

The water cools the steam used in the electric generating process. And all the fish and aquatic organisms in the water are killed in the process…………………………

For more than a quarter-century, industry has tried to put a cost-benefit overlay on environmental regulations.

In the past, that effort has often come a cropper in the courts. Now, with the Supreme Court’s new conservative composition, industry thinks it has a good shot at winning — and winning in a way that will affect all environmental regulations.

High Court Hears Argument On Power Plants : NPR

 

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium

December 3, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics