Power Plant Critics: Don't Subsidize Pollution
Monday, March 5, 2007
Paying $85 million for increased pollution and a few jobs doesn't make sense. That's the message from critics of a bill moving it's way through the New Mexico Senate. They say it's a bad idea to give a New York company millions in tax breaks to build the Desert Rock power plant, which would export power out of the state. Carol Oldham with the New Mexico Sierra Club says the drawbacks to the plan far outweigh the rewards.
"It just makes no sense for New Mexico to be paying a company to make our air and water dirty and make our kids sick and Phoenix reaps the benefits. We're paying them to do a bad thing to our state."
Sithe Global Power says the plant would provide several hundred short and long-term jobs on the Navajo Nation. A House committee permanently tabled the bill last week. Oldham notes that the area already suffers from bad air and water quality, and the plant would add sulfur, nitrogen and mercury emissions into the mix.
"People all around the state are starting to realize this is really a bad bill and a bad project."
The bill is SB 431.
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