AEP, feds reach air-pollution settlement that EPA says is the largest in American history

American Electric Power and federal regulators have reached a $4.6 billion settlement for new air-pollution controls, many of which it is "well on its way to finishing," reports Ken Ward Jr. in The Charleston Gazette. "Regulators say their lawsuit pushed AEP into those reforms, while critics argue the Bush administration is taking too much credit for the new settlement." The settlement covers 16 power plants in five states: Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. "Government lawyers continued the fight through numerous legal delays, endless battles over document requests and evidence secrecy, and Bush administration moves to essentially eliminate the regulations at the heart of the case," Ward reports. (Read more)

The settlement "will bring $1.6 billion in new pollution controls" to the world's largest coal-fired power plant, above, at Rockport, Ind., by 2019, writes James Bruggers of The Courier-Journal in Louisville. (Photo by John Dunham, The Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.) "John Blair, an Evansville, Ind., an environmentalist whose organization, Valley Watch Inc., was among the plaintiffs in the case against AEP, said yesterday he has withdrawn from the lawsuit in part because the deadlines for pollution cuts at the Rockport plant are too far in the future." (Read more)

The deal was announced yesterday, the day that an eight-year-old federal lawsuit against AEP was supposed to go to trial in Columbus, Ohio, where the company is based. The Environmental Protection Agency "is calling the agreement the largest environmental settlement in U.S. history," reports The Columbus Dispatch, under the bylines of Kevin Mayhood, Jonathan Riskind and Paul Wilson. (Read more)