At a public hearing in Salt Lake City, advocates pressed the Utah Division of Air Quality to hold strong on an existing coal plant shutdown date as the agency reviews a revision to its regional haze plan. The latest proposal, they said, continues to fail to reduce pollution from the state's worst coal plants.
The regional haze plan is meant to address visibility and air quality problems tied to coal-fired generation. Advocates at the hearing specifically called on UDAQ to retain the requirement for shutting down the most polluting coal plants, rather than allowing a weaker or less certain timeline.
The central dispute is whether Utah will keep a firm date for coal retirements in this planning round. If the agency weakens that date, advocates warned, the plan would fall short of meaningful pollution reductions.