Steve Corwell is the Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for IPL.

All of us desire to breathe cleaner air, and indeed, as a result of modifications that Indiana utilities have made to electricity generating facilities over the past several years, customers are benefiting from cleaner air, but at a cost.  In the case of IPL alone, over the past five years, we have spent over $400 million on the installation of emission reduction equipment, reducing sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrous oxide (NOx) and Mercury (Hg) by approximately 97 percent, 90 percent, and 40 percent, respectively.

As we face potentially significant green house gas regulation in Washington, available mitigation technologies are more limited and therefore, achieving meaningful targets will be expensive. Coupled with these costs, further, more restrictive, NOx, SO2 and Hg regulations are likely, and many utilities are, or soon will be, embarking on the next major power plant construction program to meet their customers' growing needs for electricity. At the same time, the cost of Indiana spot coal has risen more than 75 percent in the last six months, as that coal is more and more influenced by world coal demand.

As we look to comply with the increasing costs of cleaner air, it will be important that we educate customers about both the benefits and costs of cleaner air and our increasing demands for electricity. Through education, we will be able to help our customers understand that clean air has a price and a proper balance must be found.