by Dr. Andrew Kleit
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~kleit/front page/V5five.w2.pdf
We discuss today the regulation of sulphur dioxide (SO2) from coal burning electric utilities. It was generally conceded that this use of coal was causing environmental problems. So how was the government going to regulate utilities? The logical way would have been to restrict the output of emissions. The 1970 Clean Air Act (CAA) set one set of standards, but in 1979 (amendments to CAA) there was a push to change the law - in part, as we shall see, to protect the jobs of Eastern coal miners.
Abatement could be achieved in 3 ways: 1) substitute low sulphur western coal for high sulphur eastern coal; 2) use "coal washing", which would remove 20 to 40% of the sulphur. The third, and by far the most expensive, was to use smokestack "scrubbers", which can cost up to $100 million per plant.
The government chose to require that coal "scrubbers" be placed on the stacks of utilities. This would reduce sulphur dioxide, at least somewhat. But why would the government prefer process over direct implementation of a standard? Robert Byrd knows why.
Western coal is low sulphur and thus more efficient to use. But Byrd was able to use his position to save jobs for West Virginia coal miners. He and his allies got Congress to pass a law requiring all utility generators to install high quality scrubbers, thus making the sulphur content of the coal unimportant.
The process chosen was the most costly and least effective method of addressing the pollution problem.