The Environmental Protection Agency recently cracked down on coal plant emissions in North Texas. The move comes as part of an effort to improve the haze problem at Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Southwest Oklahoma, reports StateImpact Oklahoma.
The EPA has gone state by state to enforce its Regional Haze Rule. The 1999 law helps increase visibility at national parks and wilderness areas by cutting haze-causing emissions at coal-fired power plants.
The EPA rejected Texas’s own state-developed plan to reduce emissions, and on Wednesday the agency finalized its own Regional Haze plan for the Lone Star State. Seven coal-fired units at power plants in Texas will have to install expensive air scrubbers. In addition, another seven plants will have to upgrade scrubbers that aren’t cleaning the air enough. Texas will likely take the federal government to court to stop the ruling. Coal plants in Texas currently emit more pollution than coal plants in any other state, according to the Sierra Club.