NEWS

SENATE REPORT SEEMS TO FAVOR MORE SW ENERGY . . . The Senate Interior Committee approved an interim report covering the Committee's investigations of the federal role in the development of large coal-fired power plants in the southwest. While it did find fault with a number of federal actions concerning these plants, its major recommendations were confined to the need for further research. Environmentalists are particularly alarmed that the report appears to accept as inevitable the construction of a substantial amount of coal-fired generating capacity in the region between 1980 and 1990. EPA PROPOSES CURBS ON SMELTER, POWER PLANT EMISSIONS . . . Acting under provisions of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday proposed regulations to curb sulfur dioxide emissions from smelters in six western states and from power plants in four states. The rules would require 13 smelters in Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah to install equipment to remove gases from smokestack emissions at a cost estimated at $544 million. EPA also proposed regulations to reduce by 70 percent the sulfur dioxide emissions from the so-called Four Corners plants in Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona. INTERIOR ASKED TO REVISE DRAFT SW ENERGY STUDY . . . The Sierra Club has asked the Interior Department to discard its April draft of the Southwest Energy Study and to prepare a new report that presents the facts in a balanced fashion. "It is our opinion that the management team has ignored or attempted to hide many of the facts developed by the work groups," wrote Southwest Representative John McComb in a letter to John W. Neuberqer, study manager. The Southwest Energy Study was ordered by the Interior Department in 1970 as an interagency study, carried out by 12 work groups. LA CITY COUNCIL REFUSES NAVAJO PLANT CONTRACT . . . In June the Los Angeles City Council refused to ratify the final contracts for the Navajo power plant project being constructed near Lake Powell in northeastern Arizona. Instead, the Council directed the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to renegotiate the final contracts to include ten amendments offered by environmentalists. FROM THE CLUB BOD RESOLUTIONS: WILD RIVER PROTECTION FOR THE RIO GRANDE IN TEXAS . . . The Sierra, Club supports the designation as a Wild River of unprotected portions of the Rio Grande River between Colorado Canyon and Dryden Crossing in the state of Texas. The Club opposes any incompatible development and management of existing facilities that would create environmentally harmful effects to the river environment within the Big Bend National Park. Furthermore, the Club strongly urges the United States government to seek the active cooperation of the government of the Republic of Mexico to obtain similar protection for their share of this international river.

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