Court agrees with SELC, strikes down climate change loophole

Along with our partners, SELC is celebrating a victory for cleaner air and southern forests. With scientific research, we showed in federal court that wood-burning biomass to generate electricity is as harmful to our health and our climate as burning coal—if not more so. In July, a federal court agreed and overturned EPA’s three-year exemption from new permitting standards for carbon dioxide emissions, allowing new biomass-fueled facilities to release unlimited amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Applying greenhouse gas regulations to new biomass plants will help protect our air, our climate, and our forests, which have been clear-cut in some areas to supply growing biomass demand in this country and abroad.