It was reported that attorney general Roy Cooper sent the letters, dated December 5, to attorneys general in Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.

The letter claims that under Section 126 of the Clean Air Act, North Carolina has the right to petition the U.S. EPA if it believes that other states are contributing to difficulties in maintaining air quality standards. If the petition is granted it means the contributing sources in other states will be subject to emissions limitations that will abate their contribution.

The letter said that recently published 2010 base year modeling suggests three North Carolina monitoring sites will be in non-compliance with standards by 2010.

Platts reports that the letter concluded: “Therefore, please be advised that we are currently preparing a 126 petition with the EPA which may include coal-fired utility plants in your state, among others, which the evidence shows are contributing significantly to non-attainment or interfering with maintenance by North Carolina of the PM2.5 standard. We intend to take this action as soon as all of the evidence has been evaluated.”