Co-op Argues Against Sierra Club Escaping Suit Over Blocking Of Aid For Coal-fired Plants

摘要

The Sierra Club is asking to be excused as a defendant in a lawsuit over federal support for coal-fired power plants, but plaintiff East Texas Electric Cooperative is arguing that the activist group's aggressive advocacy and litigation policies tie it to a suspension of federal financial assistance for such generators. The primary target of the ETEC lawsuit, in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, is the Rural Utilities Service, which has halted assistance to rural electric utilities wanting to participate in development of coal-fired power plants. RUS has said it is "not currently authorized to provide financing for baseload generation." But ETEC has told the court that RUS violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it refused to act on ETEC applications for loans to buy stakes in two generator projects in Arkansas. For those projects - Plum Point, currently under construction, and John W. Turk, awaiting construction clearance - RUS had earlier agreed that there were no procedural impediments to acting on ETEC's requests, the plaintiff said.