Transcript of Press Conference Announcing Settlement in United States Et Al vs. American Elec...(not a case that related to any conduct a...),Health

QUESTION: What does this do in terms of the other settlement talks going forward with companies like Duke and the other utilities that are still pending?

MR. TENPAS: We do have four other significant power plant cases still ongoing. I don't want to comment or speculate about the status of those cases. Obviously we think this is a significant result. Time will tell whether that has any effect on any of those other matters.

QUESTION: Can you compare the size of this case to that of the four that are still ongoing or -- I guess there were three others that have since been settled?

MR. TENPAS: Do you want to try addressing that?

MR. NAKAYAMA: Sure. This is the largest settlement by about a factor of four compared to any of our prior power plant settlements in the initiative, and I think it's probably the largest when we look at the total, 22,000 megawatts in the fleet here that we're addressing today.

But again, you can never tell until you finally have a settlement agreement in hand what the environmental benefits of any settlement would be, so I think it's premature.

Let me also add in response to the prior question, we are vigorously enforcing the law at EPA and so with respect to our efforts, they continue, and I think it's quite clear from our court filings the position of the United States is that we are all regulated entities, including utilities to meet their environmental responsibilities under the laws and regulations of the United States.

QUESTION: Because it took nine years to reach this settlement from the time that it was originally filed, this department has gone through three Attorneys General, Reno, Ashcroft and Gonzales, and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about sort of the sweep of history here on this case. That is, were there intermittent negotiations throughout that entire nine-year period? How would you sort of characterize the wa
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