Clear air group names legal team
Dallas Business Journal – August 31, 2006

The "Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition," a group of mayors representing 17 Texas cities and led by Dallas Mayor Laura Miller and Houston Mayor Bill White, held a press conference Thursday to announce the legal team enlisted to represent the coalition in its fight against proposed coal-fired utility plants in Texas.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality currently is reviewing permit requests for 17 new coal-fired plants proposed to be built in Texas by seven different utility companies. Dallas-based TXU Corp. is proposing 11 of those.

The coalition's legal team will be led by Houston-based law firm Susman Godfrey L.L.P. and Stephen Susman; Debra L. Baker, founding partner of Houston-based Connelly, Baker, Maston, Wotring, Jackson L.L.P. -- which focuses on complex environmental cases -- and David Frederick of Loweree and Frederick, an Austin-based law firm known for its work representing local governments and others facing environmental threats.

"We know that the utility companies need to provide more electricity for people," Miller said, "and we know that they need to build more power plants to do that. But there are companies outside Texas that are using more modern, cleaner technologies than the proposed method of coal-burning to do it.

"We would simply like to research this thoroughly and present all the alternatives for consideration."

Most of the proposed coal plants are in East and Central Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth. It's predicted they could add tons of pollution annually to North Texas, which is already losing a long-running battle to meet federal clean air standards.

In a letter Miller previously sent to all the mayors in the state asking for $10,000 from each city to help hire a law firm to intervene before the TCEQ, she cites figures that the new plants each year would spew: 30,000 tons of smog-producing nitrogen oxide, or NOx; more than 115 million tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2, which contributes to global warming; and nearly 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury.

Cities making up the coalition are Arlington, Cedar Hill, Coppell, Dallas, DeSoto, Duncanville, El Paso, Fort Worth, Frisco, Hillsboro, Houston, Irving, Lancaster, McKinney, Plano, Rockwall and Wylie. The coalition says it expects other cities to join in the next few months.

"Currently, air quality in North Texas is in poor shape," said Irving Mayor Herbert Gears. "Using cleaner and more efficient methods that currently exist, power can be produced and distributed in a less harmful way. As leaders in our communities, we must hold the power industry accountable to produce power quickly without compromising environmental standards."

Miller said an account will be opened soon to receive donations from the public to the Texas Cities for Clean Air Coalition.