State’s San Juan Plan Cost Analyzed

An independent analysis of the state’s proposed compromise to settle the regional haze dispute at the Juan power plant concludes it would hit PNM ratepayers harder than the one preferred by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“EPA’s regional haze plan would impose almost $375 million in compliance costs on PNM ratepayers … to achieve an ‘improvement’ in visibility that is imperceptible,” said the report’s author, William Yeatman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a news release. “Unfortunately, the state’s alternative proposal is even worse – it would cost $20 million more, yet it would significantly diminish PNM’s firm generating capacity.”