TV Ad Targets TXU's Dirty Coal Plants

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Colin Rowan, Environmental Defense, (512) 691-3416
Jim Marston, Environmental Defense, (512) 289-5293

(Austin, TX – February 7, 2007) - Environmental Defense will begin airing a TV ad in the Waco market today that challenges TXU’s plans to build 11 old-style coal-fired power plants throughout Central and Northeast Texas.

View the ads here.

The ad, titled “Profits and Pollution” will run in the Waco market for two weeks. It will begin airing in Dallas early next week. An additional buy in Waco and buys in other Texas markets are planned. Viewers are directed to www.stopTXU.com and urged to ask their state legislator to slow down TXU’s fast-tracked coal plan.

“TXU’s TV ads are full of fear and fiction,” said Environmental Defense regional director Jim Marston. “Our ad sticks to the facts, and the fact of the matter is that TXU’s dirty coal plants will make a ring of fire around McLennan County and spew new pollution up to Dallas and down to Austin.”

TXU’s recent ad campaign, known as “Monsters,” implies that Texas will suffer blackouts if its dirty-coal plants are not built. The truth is that TXU’s projections show the company cannot meet the electricity short-fall it says the state will face in the summers of 2008 and 2009. A recent analysis by Environmental Defense shows that implementing increased efficiency measures would resolve any potential energy shortfall more quickly and would be cheaper and cleaner than the construction of 50-year coal plants. Such efficiency measures would allow Texas legislators more than enough time to devise a more thoughtful, responsible energy plan for the state.

“Texas doesn’t have to rush into this decision,” Marston said. “The threat of blackouts is no more real than monsters under a child’s bed. Our approach is less dramatic, but much more promising than TXU’s depiction of monsters and chaos.”

The ad hit the airwaves the same day that another TXU myth was debunked. TXU has proudly touted its so-called “voluntary 20% reduction” of regulated pollutants as proof of its environmental stewardship. But an Environmental Defense analysis illustrates that federal clean air laws mandate much larger cuts of two important pollutants, sulfur dioxide and mercury, than TXU’s 20% pledge will deliver.

“TXU’s 20% reduction pledge isn’t voluntary and it won’t meet the federal mandate,” Marston said. “Moreover, the company will more than double its emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary man-made greenhouse gas, from 55 million tons a year to 133 million tons a year. Read Environmental Defense’s “20% Pledge” fact sheet [pdf].