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Forest Service said the rules jeopardized Montana's chances of meeting the 2064 goal.
• But the EPA said more expensive pollution control upgrades were not justified.
• "You have incremental levels of improvement but you also have incremental costs associated with that," said Daly.
• The EPA said its plan was reasonable in that it will take between 135 years and 427 years to restore visibility to its natural conditions in the parks and wilderness areas analyzed.
• Northeast Montana's Medicine Lake Wilderness would take the longest -- 437 years. Among other notable natural areas, Yellowstone National Park would take 161 years and Glacier National Park 268 years.
• Industry representatives said the EPA dramatically underestimated the costs of compliance, while overestimating the actual improvements those upgrades will pro

duce.
• Colstrip operator PPL Montana said installing new pollution control equipment could cost far more than the EPA's $83 million estimate. Operating costs to run the new pollution scrubbers would amount to millions more annually.
• Colstrip is the second largest coal-fired power plant west of the Mississippi River, burning more than 10 million tons of coal a year to generate about 2,200 megawatts of electricity.
• "These are huge investments," said PPL Montana spokesman David Hoffman. "I don't think it will actually accomplish anything that is perceptible to the human."
• Daly said that while air quality improvements from upgrades made at any single plant might not be visible, the cumulative effects would be a "significant improvement."
• An estimated 6,500 tons of nitrogen oxides and 8,600 tons of sulfur dioxide will be reduced annually as a result of the plan, EPA spokesman Matthew Allen said in a statement.
• Many other states have been devising their own haze-reduction plans, but Montana chose to let the federal government take the lead. Some states and utilities elsewhere have been pushing back. As with PPL, they cite costs and say the five-year timeline for compliance is too short.
• Any legal challenge to Wednesday's rule must be filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals within 60 days of its publication. Montana retains the option of coming up with its own rule subject to final EPA approval, Daly said.
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