Connecticut's top environmental official says the state will no longer accept being the "tailpipe of America" and has asked the federal government to crack down on out-of-state pollution.
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Commissioner Robert Klee is asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to require the Brunner Island Steam Electric Station in southwest Pennsylvania to reduce pollution from its three coal-fired power plants, which he says blow pollution into Connecticut.
“So at our border, there is dirty air coming to Connecticut that we had nothing to do with making, and we can’t control.”
Klee says only the federal government can control that pollution, but he says Connecticut has made progress on scaling back air pollution by regulating its own power plants. The state still has the highest ozone levels in the Northeast, but Klee says that’s because of mobile sources of pollution -- in other words, cars and trucks.
Klee says the Connecticut DEEP has also joined 10 other state and local environmental agencies in asking the EPA to set stricter air pollution engine limits for large diesel trucks.
