Monday, March 09, 2015

Plans For Rockport Coal Gasification Plant Officially Dead

Leucadia's plans to develop a controversial $2.8 billion coal gasification plant in Rockport pushed by the Daniels administration and one of Gov. Daniels' closest political cronies, Mark Lubbers, is officially dead according to the Evansville Courier & Press. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management withdrew an air quality permit required for the plant after New York-based Leucadia requested the permit be revoked.

Utility companies and some business groups opposed the plant because of an agreement the Daniels administration brokered with the politically-connected company that would have forced utility companies to purchase natural gas produced by the plant, which opponents said threatened to artificially inflate natural gas prices passed on to consumers. Leucadia officials balked after lawmakers passed legislation in 2013 providing for greater regulatory oversight of the project, warning that the additional oversight would kill the project.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is good news. This deal stunk from day 1. Shame on the elected leaders who supported it.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, yes. Mark Lubbers, the quintessential political kiss ass. Not at all sorry to see this rotten scheme crash and burn. A real man would have procured a real job years ago instead of being Mitch Daniel's toad for decades.

Josh said...

Additional oversight would have killed the project? Gee I wonder why they'd say that? Maybe because their profit model was based upon fraud wich couldn't take place if it was uncovered? Try living near one of these things, it's like living next door to a running jet engine. But the smell's the worst of it all.