By Reagan Priest | Arizona Capitol Times
After the Arizona Corporation Commission voted last week to exempt an energy company from an environmental review of a power plant expansion, environmental and clean energy groups say they will fight back.
Last week, the commission voted to reverse an order from the Arizona Power Plant and Transmission Line Siting Committee requiring UniSource Energy to obtain a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility for its proposed expansion of the Black Mountain Generating Station near Kingman. Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon chapter, said the vote goes against decades of precedent.
“We’ve been doing it this way for 50 years in Arizona,” Bahr said. “This is a brand new interpretation.”
Under state law, power plants with units of 100 megawatts or more are required to obtain Certificates of Environmental Compatibility from the Line Siting Committee. UniSource argued that its expansion project would only add units that are 50 megawatts and that the project should not need an environmental certificate even though the total wattage of the units would be greater than 100 megawatts.
The commission agreed, saying state statute left little room for any other interpretation.
“There was a spirited discussion on this issue and the Commission devoted a lot of time considering the different perspectives, reaching the ultimate conclusion that the law as written left the Commission no choice but to disclaim jurisdiction,” said Doug Clark, executive director of the commission, in a statement released after the vote.
