LG&E upgrade provides new tool to defend against EPA onslaught

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Louisville Gas and Electric has recently shown another way how the states can battle the ever-encroaching edicts of the Environmental Protection Agency.

We recently wrote how the Bluegrass Institute-sponsored Intrastate Coal and Use Act and the Electricity Freedom Act will prove to be much-needed tools in defending state sovereignty of our energy sector. LG&E provided another one last week when it announced its Mill Creek plant near Louisville will undergo nearly $1 billion of environmental upgrades to decrease sulfur dioxide emissions.

The Mill Creek Plant currently releases emissions considered 90% clean. After the upgrades, the emissions will be 98% clean. Such an upgrade will allow LG&E to continue to use the most efficient source of energy Kentucky has to offer - coal - while also ensuring the environmental safety of neighboring citizens.

This upgrade shows how Kentuckians can balance their own environmental concerns while also taking advantage of Kentucky's most valuable natural resource. It's the man-on-the-spot and local knowledge that allows power plants and state officials to determine which of these costly types of investments are worthwhile and which are not, for the well-being of the citizenry.

By the states taking responsibility for their own environmental issues, the EPA has no justification for bureaucratic overreach. Hopefully that lack of justification will stop them.