Public Health Crisis in Maryland: Why is the Governor Trying to Roll Back Critical Healthy Air Protections?

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan took swift action during his first day in office this January to unlawfully block the implementation of critical clean air regulations that would have protected the public health by cleaning up pollution from Maryland’s coal-fired power plants. These carefully-crafted safeguards were the product of a fifteen-month stakeholder process that brought together power plant owners, public health groups, environmental advocates, and concerned citizens. The protections were formally adopted by the Maryland Department of the Environment after receiving the unanimous endorsement of the state’s independent air quality advisory council, and were hours from being published when Governor Hogan took office and stopped the presses. Now, after taking no action to implement the protections during his first three months in office, Governor Hogan has invoked “emergency” rulemaking authority to ram forward dramatically weakened rules without any public input.

This “emergency” is of the Governor’s own making; the Governor had finalized safeguards on his desk for 3 months and chose to take no action. The true public health emergency here is that the Governor’s new administration is attempting to roll back commonsense public health protections, protections that simply say to coal plant owners: “Operate your existing pollution controls; and if you’re going to continue to burn coal in Maryland into the next decade, install and run modern pollution safeguards for the sake of our health.”

That’s why Sierra Club and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, represented by Earthjustice, have now committed to defending public health through the courts. This week, the groups notified Governor Hogan that they intend to hold him accountable for unlawfully blocking publication of these critical safeguards and ensure that he starts immediately implementing them.

Millions of Marylanders Suffer from Failing Air Quality

Marylanders, and Baltimore area residents in particular, have long suffered from the worst air quality and the highest smog levels in the East.  Five million Maryland residents—85% of the state’s population—live in areas that fail to meet the health-based air quality standards for smog set by the Environmental Protection Agency. Exposure to elevated smog levels can cause premature death and a wide range of harmful respiratory and cardiovascular effects, as well as significantly increasing the risk of pre-term birth.[1]

Children, the elderly, and other sensitive populations are especially at risk. Smog is a potent asthma trigger, which is a tremendous public health concern in Baltimore where an alarming 20% of Baltimore City children under 18 have asthma—more than double the national average.[2] In Maryland, smog presents a serious environmental justice concern as well due to broad racial and socioeconomic disparities. For example, black Marylanders are nearly two-and-a-half times as likely as white Marylanders to die from asthma, nearly three times as likely to be hospitalized for asthma, and more than four times as likely as white Marylanders to visit the emergency department for asthma.[3]

These health impacts come at great cost to Maryland residents.  Not only does poor air quality keep kids indoors, asthma emergency room visits and hospitalizations cost the state over $99 million in 2009 alone.[4]

Maryland’s Coal Plants Must Be Part of the Solution

Coal plants are major contributors to Maryland’s smog problem. While the Maryland Healthy Air Act ensured the addition of state-of-the-art pollution controls on some of Maryland’s coal plants, more than half of coal plants escaped significant upgrades due to a loophole that allowed plant owners to average emissions across their fleet.  Today, the remaining uncontrolled coal plants are the largest individual sources of smog-forming pollution in Maryland.  This is especially problematic on the hottest, poorest air quality days when pollution reductions are needed the most and when the dirtiest plants are most likely to be operating.  Plants like C.P. Crane near Baltimore that failed to invest in modern safeguards emit smog-forming pollution at rates up to 10 times the best controlled plants in the state.

As other states have controlled their coal fleets, Maryland has become a significant outlier in the East, still lacking modern pollution protections on 57% of its coal units. Even coal-heavy states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Alabama have far surpassed Maryland in ensuring their plants are equipped with state-of-the-art technology. The protections which Governor Hogan unlawfully blocked would have finally brought Maryland’s coal fleet into the 21^st century, requiring modern controls on all Maryland coal units.

* Includes coal units >125 MW that have installed or in a couple cases committed to install modern selective catalytic reduction control technology by 2016 and are not under a commitment to retire by 2016.

** New York recently required one of its remaining coal units to upgrade to modern controls by 2018, which will bump their % up to 60%.

A Solution Was in Place . . .

Because of the Baltimore area’s failing air quality, the Clean Air Act required the Maryland Department of the Environment to develop new protections to curb smog-forming emissions from Maryland’s coal plants.  Maryland Department of the Environment embarked on this process in October 2013 commencing with a series of public stakeholder meetings. 

This process ultimately extended for fifteen months, and featured significant negotiation and ultimately compromise between industry, physicians, clean air groups, and citizens. In the end, the regulations embraced the commonsensical requirement that all plants should operate the pollution controls they’ve already installed starting right away, and those still lacking modern pollution safeguards should be required to install and run them, switch to a less polluting fuel, or stop operating by the end of the decade.

This pragmatic approach to protecting public heath garnered an unprecedented degree of support from all sectors, including from Raven Power, the owner of half of the state’s coal plants. Maryland’s independent air quality board unanimously approved the protections and the Maryland Department of the Environment finalized them on January 16^th after the required public notification and comment processes ran their course.  These safeguards were literally signed, sealed, and delivered.

But Governor Hogan Is Attempting to Unlawfully Block Implementation of That Solution

Unfortunately for Marylanders, one of Governor Hogan’s first acts in office was to block publication of these finalized and adopted smog protections.  Not only did the Governor lack the legal authority to stop publication of a final rule, he did not even follow his own justification for unlawfully stopping publication of the protections.

In unlawfully pulling back the protections, Governor Hogan stated that he was initiating a comprehensive review of pending regulations to allow "public input, public hearing, and full due process" before regulations may be finalized. Based on this rhetoric, one might have anticipated the Governor would use the ensuing months to allow for public input and engage in public process. Or that he would listen to the more than 9,000 individuals who have weighed in asking him to move forward with the protections. Or to the Montgomery County, Prince George’s County and Baltimore City councils, which voiced their support for their protections. Or to the Maryland State Medical Society, which passed a resolution calling for modern pollution controls on all Maryland coal plants. Or the 70 legislators and numerous public health and environmental groups who drafted comments and letters in support of the protections. Or even the owner of half the coal plants in Maryland, who also filed comments supporting the protections.

But you would be wrong. Governor Hogan has used the past three months to listen behind closed doors to the one dissenting voice, an out of state energy company that is fighting any attempt to clean up its coal plants in Maryland. Yet even this company’s objections to the commonsensical protections are difficult to fathom. In 2012, well before the Maryland Department of the Environment commenced its stakeholder process to develop the protections, this company formally informed its shareholders and government agencies on multiple occasions that it anticipated installing the exact pollution controls described in the state’s safeguards at its dirtiest Maryland plants in the 2018 to 2021 time frame to comply with expected Clean Air Act requirements. (The final regulations require exactly that and set that date at 2020.) Moreover, the following year in 2013, prior to the release of any draft of the regulations, this company filed a formal deactivation notice for these same dirty plants, effective in 2018. If the company’s plan is to deactivate the plants in 2018, it’s hard to comprehend why it is fighting so hard against protections that don’t kick in until 2020. Meanwhile, the same company has publicly stated its intention to upgrade pollution controls or switch to a cleaner fuel at 22 other coal units across the country in 5 other states. Why should Marylanders continue to suffer from poorly-controlled plants while upgrades are promised at countless other coal plants?

Sierra Club and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility Standing Up for Public Health

Despite Governor Hogan’s assurance that “I’m going to be the best environmental governor that’s ever served,” his actions tell a very different story. Taking his cues from a single corporate polluter, he is unlawfully attempting to gut common sense protections that simply ask coal plant owners to bring their dirty 1950’s facilities into the 21^st century.

That’s why the Sierra Club and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility are ready for action and willing to fight against back-tracking on healthy air safeguards that all Marylanders deserve.