Critics slam AG in clean-air case
Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain News
Published September 16, 2006 at midnight
Environmentalists accused Colorado's attorney general Friday of siding with polluters in a U.S. Supreme Court case scheduled for oral arguments Nov. 1 in Washington, D.C.
Attorney General John Suthers joined with Alabama and nine other states in an air pollution case, Environmental Defense, et al. vs. Duke Energy Corp.
Suthers signed on to a brief arguing that the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to impose new, sweeping air pollution regulations. The brief argues that those decisions should be left to the states.
Vickie Patton of the Environmental Defense Fund attacked Suthers for siding with polluters and not Coloradans concerned about dirty air. She said the case presents pivotal questions about whether some 17,000 industrial smokestacks and power plants nationwide should be subject to pollution control standards.
Suthers' spokeswoman, Kristen Holtzman, said the environmentalists' accusations are misleading.
"Colorado has joined 10 other states, including neighboring Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming, in asserting that EPA's interpretation of the Clean Air Act undermines the Act's carefully structured state-federal enforcement scheme, which gives the states primary enforcement responsibility," Holtzman said in a written statement.
Gov. Bill Owens' spokesman, Dan Hopkins, said the governor has not been involved in the case "but defers to the good judgment of the attorney general in filing an amicus brief along with 10 other states in support of Alabama."
Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, a Democrat, said Suthers' decision baffles her, especially when the federal government is on the other side.
Rep. Anne McGihon, D-Denver, accused Suthers of "choosing out-of-state big business over Colorado's families." Owens vetoed a clean-air bill McGihon sponsored earlier this year.
The brief ignited furor among other environmentalists.
"Today, Attorney General Suthers used the citizens of Colorado to attack our nation's clean air laws, placing our state in coalition with the nation's worst polluters," Will Coyne of Environment Colorado said.
"It's rare when the right choice to make is so clear and the wrong choice to make is so wrong. Mr. Suthers should immediately withdraw his name from this irresponsible position."
McCrimmonK@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2502
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