For those of you following the status of CAIR, the U.S. Appeals Court’s decision to reinstate CAIR shouldn’t come as a surprise. CAIR, as written, goes into effect in nine days.  The Court ruling stated: "Having considered the parties' respective positions with respect to the remedy in this case, the court hereby grants EPA's (the Environmental Protection Agency's) petition only to the extent that we will remand the case without vacatur for EPA to conduct further proceedings."

The court said that, "notwithstanding the relative flaws of CAIR," allowing the rule to remain in effect until it is replaced by a rule consistent with the court's opinion would preserve the environmental values intended to be addressed by existing CAIR regulations.

While not unexpected, this ruling has huge implications for the power industry and how it deals with NOx, SO2, and particulates. The decision also makes a strong case for adopting optimization solutions that not only represent the most cost-effective means of NOx control, but also provide substantial benefits in the form of increased efficiency, reduced CO2 emissions, and improved reliability.

We’ll continue to follow the CAIR story and cover ways in which generators are complying with the new regulations. In the meantime, I’m interested to hear what readers think about the decision. Personally I’m wondering why I didn’t make retirement easier by investing my life savings in annual NOx allowances prior to the anticipated reinstatement.