Release – Dallas, TX – Today the Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition issued its response to the announcement yesterday by the Las Brisas Energy Company that it would suspend its efforts to obtain a permit for a 1320-Megawatt, petroleum coke-fired power plant near Corpus Christi.
Spokeswoman Linda Koop, Dallas City Council member and Steering Committee Chair of the Coalition, said, “We are extremely pleased that Las Brisas has abandoned its plans to build this ill-advised plant, which would have been located only five miles from downtown Corpus Christi.”
Ms. Koop added, “All the medical associations of the surrounding counties joined us and other environmental groups and submitted testimony that pollution from the proposed plant would likely cause a significant increase in the severity and prevalence of asthma and other respiratory illnesses in the area.”
Ms. Koop expressed gratitude to the Coalition’s law firm, Susman Godfrey, L.L.P., for its successful pro bono work on this and related clean air cases. “We firmly believe that their efforts and the Coalitions’ have benefitted public health throughout much of Texas.”
Coalition attorney Terry Oxford of Susman Godfrey stated, “Although Las Brisas claims that its decision yesterday was in part the result of new EPA rules, in fact Las Brisas failed to show – in either of two different trials – that its proposed plant would comply with existing air quality standards. On appeal, the district court confirmed those findings by the trial Judges.”
Other attorneys representing the protesting groups included Drew Hansen and Brian Melton of Susman Godfrey for the Coalition; Tom Weber and Matt Baab of McElroy, Sullivan, Miller, Weber & Olmstead for the Environmental Defense Fund; Ilan Levin of the Environmental Integrity Project for the Sierra Club; and Pat Morris for the Clean Economy Coalition.
