Huge new loophole erodes Clean Air Act
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 26, 2003
home.hamptonroads.com
A plan to allow thousands of old pollution-belching industrial plants to be
gradually phased out never worked. Making matters worse, the Bush
administration is about to impose rules to greatly extend those plants' lives,
saving industry billions and fouling the air.
When Congress raised federal clean-air standards for plants in 1977, the
government could hardly shut down every one that violated the new tougher
rules. Instead, thousands of existing plants were exempted with this
proviso: If more than routine maintenance was done, state-of-the-art
pollution controls had to be added -- an expensive proposition. The plants
could be nursed along, but not overhauled or expanded. To avoid the
expense, the utilities found ways to extend the life of their power plants.
Today, 26 years later, 17,000 of them still belch extra pollutants under the
old rules.
Bush's rules would enable an old plant to expand 20 percent without adding
expensive anti-pollution equipment. Clearly this works exactly opposite
Congress' intent in 1977 to phase out the worst-polluting plants.
The administration argues that the no-expansion rule is impossibly
cumbersome, by which they seem to mean that expansion is difficult. It
ought to be for old plants that pollute heavily. The administration says that
other Clean Air Act provisions will keep air clean, but that is questionable.
John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council called the 20
percent standard ``a grotesque accounting gimmick.'' He said it would ``let
companies completely overhaul their plants over time and spew even more
pollution than now.''
The new rules put the administration in an awkward political spot.
Bush's nominee to head the
Environmental Protection Agency is Utah
Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, whose
administration in Utah vociferously
opposed rules to extend
pollution-belching plants' lives. If
confirmed as EPA head, Leavitt will have
to support rules that his Utah
administration rightly opposed.
Bush's undercutting of the Clean Air Act
will be challenged in court. In fact, New
York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
promised to file a challenge as soon as
the new rules are signed.
One might suppose that undercutting the Clean Air Act, with no
congressional action, would be illegal. Or at least one can hope. The Clean
Air Act has been one of the federal government's great successes over the
past quarter-century. It should not be weakened. |
