All five bills introduced by Sen. Clint Stennett relating to coal-fired power plants have been assigned numbers, and a public hearing on one will be held today in Boise.
Stennett, D-Ketchum, whose district includes Blaine County, has been advocating more oversight and tighter regulations over plants such as the one proposed last year by San Diego-based Sempra Generation.
Sempra announced last April that it intends to build a $1.4 billion, 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant nine miles northeast of Jerome in Jerome County.
The public hearing today is on a bill labeled S1276, which seeks to amend the Local Planning Act to provide notice to residents of adjoining counties in which a power plant of more than 50 megawatts is proposed.
This will give out-of-county residents the opportunity to appear and testify before the decision-making bodies of the county, according to the bill.
Another bill promoted by Stennett is S1292, which would create a state siting committee to oversee the siting process for coal-fired power plants.
Currently, county commissioners have sole authority to approve a power plant once Idaho Department of Environmental Quality permits are issued and a transfer of water right is secured.
S1274 proposes a moratorium on the permitting or construction of merchant coal-fired power plants with a generating capacity of 250 megawatts or more. The bill has a sunset clause of April 1, 2007.
S1293 would keep mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants at the current cap of zero.
S1294 proposes that merchant power plants—those that sell power on the open market—would be assessed by the state tax commission the same way public utility plants are.
The hearing for S1276, before the Senate Local Government & Taxation Committee, will begin at approximately 3 p.m. Feb. 1.
