I work at a coal fired power plant (lolz !)

I recently attended a briefing given by the company's legal department - since I am in Engineering, they EPA routinely comes in (metaphorically, they arent knocking on the front door) and asks for *all* the data from *every* capital project in the last 10 years to make sure that nothing we did puts us afoul of any CAA requirements (google "BACT") - the law says that every time you do a 'major upgrade' to a power plant, you have to install the "Best Available control technology" for emissions.
talk about weasel words- there is a lot of interpretation here.
in this brief by the company lawyer, she quoted a judge in Alabama(?) who threw out an Alabama EPA suit (against a power plant) calling it "regulating for sport"

(these cases dont always get thrown out, but she painted the picture of a legal landscape that varies greatly from state to state, even though to basic language is the same...) She went so far as to advise us "do not use the words "will cause an outage if not repaired" in an email [company record] because if you prevent an outage, it could be interpreted as prolonging the life of the plant, and/or causing the plant to run more than it was designed. which would increase emissions... (her version of the EPA's words - not mine).

My point is, that in other cases, *it appears that* the EPA as a whole does not operate like other inspection/oversight agencies.

I am not sure of this (I'm relatively new there), nor can I say that the EPA has no right to this information (utilities are normally subject to this kind of regulation and have many other requirements we must meet (30-day rolling averages, opacity, NOx, SOx...)
I guess the analogy would be if OSHA came in and asked for the video feeds from all the camera's set up on site, and then screened them for violations and fined/sued you appropriately. Is this wrong ? not really- a violation was committed. Is it more extreme than any other agency I can name ? yes.
I cannot speak for my company, or any other electric utility (of any size) but this does seem a bit oppressive.

"regulation for sport"

-John

__________________
2009 Kia Sedona
2009 Honda Odyssey EX-L
12006 Jetta Pumpe Duse
(insert Mercedes here)

Husband, Father, sometimes friend =)