Dive Brief:

• A federal appeals court decided to stay its ruling that requires an Oklahoma utility to install pollution controls at two coal-fired power plants until the U.S. Supreme Court decides if it will hear the case.
• In July, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld an Environmental Protection Agency plan for reducing regional haze causing pollution from two plants owned by Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. The utility contends that EPA's plan for the plants will cost about $1 billion over five years. EPA believes the plan will cost much less.
• OG&E and the Oklahoma attorney general have until January 31 to ask the Supreme Court to review the appeals court's July decision.

Dive Insight:

Other utilities have argued that EPA's plans for cutting pollution under the regional haze rules have been excessive. But in several key cases, the utilities ended up agreeing to compromise plans that included retiring units at the power plants in exchange for installing less expensive pollution controls on the remaining units.