As I wrote in my column earlier this week, on Tuesday the DC circuit court issued a ruling blocking the Environmental Protection Agency's Cross State Air Pollution standard, which governs coal plant emissions of sulfur and nitrogen in 28 eastern states. Now that we've all had a couple of days to digest the ruling, we have a better sense of what the ruling means for coal.
 
While the ruling creates a temporary delay, it does not change the reality that too much coal pollution is crossing state lines in 28 eastern states, and that this air pollution has to be cleaned up. The only question now is when, and how. Whether the full court rehears this case and affirms the rule, or whether the Environmental Protection Agency goes back to the drawing board and issues a new standard, these pollution reductions still will happen.

Dragging out the uncertainty on their cleanup obligations for another year or two is certainly no boon to the coal industry. In the absence of any clear standards right now, regulators and ratepayers should be even more hesitant to invest enormous sums of money in old coal plants -- especially since future cleanup standards ...

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