New Mexico Assistant Attorney General Seth Cohen says last week’s ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has to reconsider an air quality permit issued for an expansion of the Bonanza coal-fired power plant in Utah will have a similar impact on the air quality permit issued in July for the proposed Desert Rock power plant in the Four Corners region.

“EPA gave us the same reasoning in Desert Rock… that is what was rejected by the appeals board in the Bonanza plant ruling,” Cohen, who crafted New Mexico’s appeal of the Desert Rock air permit, told the Farmington Daily Times. Cohen said he used the same arguments in New Mexico’s appeal of the Desert Rock permit as the Sierra Club used in its challenge of the Bonanza expansion.

He further elaborated that last week’s ruling was a “qualified victory” for those who want the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. “Even if the EPA came up with a different interpretation (of the statutes under which it operates), it would still have to revisit the issue in Desert Rock and give a different explanation for issuing its permit,” he said. “This is a qualified victory for those who want CO2 regulated under the Clean Air Act because it says EPA has the authority to interpret the statute in such a way that it can limit CO2 from power plants.”

Cohen is also finishing up a request that will be filed next week asking the Environmental Appeals Board to reconsider the Desert Rock permit because of San Juan County’s ozone levels. The average of ozone readings taken since June 13 exceeds the new federal standard for ozone, which is based on a three-year average of fourth-highest readings. In San Juan county, according to the Daily Times, that’s 75 parts per billion of ozone to air. The average of readings since June is 77 parts per billion.