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To: JakeStraw who wrote (29667)	6/13/2002 9:26:32 AM
From: SIer formerly known as Joe B.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49844

EPA Plans to Relax Air Pollution Rules for Utilities June 12, 2002 Associated Press siliconinvestor.com WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency will relax air-pollution rules to make it easier for utilities to upgrade and expand their coal-burning power plants, Bush administration sources said late Wednesday. The long-awaited announcement, expected Thursday, addresses one of the most contentious air-pollution issues facing the administration and will give industry greater flexibility in expanding electricity production without having to install additional emissions controls. The utility industry had lobbied intensely for the rule changes, arguing that the regulations have inhibited expansion of facilities. Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force urged a re-examination of the air-pollution regulations more than 15 months ago. But environmentalists have maintained that the current regulations, which had been pressed in lawsuits filed by the Clinton administration, ensures that utilities install additional pollution controls when they modernize or expand the plants to produce more electricity. An easing of the rules, they argued, will produce millions of tons of additional pollution from older coal-burning plants and amount to a rollback of the Clean Air Act. While Mr. Cheney's task force urged the overhaul be completed in 90 days, the issue became embroiled in lengthy internal debate over how far the agency should go in easing requirements for the utilities. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said the administration wanted modest changes while the Energy Department and some White House presidential aides had argued for stronger action. Administration sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said late Wednesday that the changes would include giving utilities the ability to expand production by loosening the threshold that would trigger a requirement for new pollution controls. Utilities would be allowed to use pollution levels from any two consecutive years during the past 10 to establish an emissions baseline that will determine how much additional pollution will be allowed before the controls kick in. "At the end of the day, power plant operators need to be able to run their facilities without the perpetual threat of litigation," said Dan Reidinger, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for investor-owned utilities. Environmentalists have argued that relaxation of the so-called New Source Review requirements may threaten lawsuits filed during the Clinton administration against a group of utilities and 51 power plants alleging they were violating the Clean Air Act by making modifications that produced more electricity and more pollution. "However they try to spin it, the Bush team is looking to adopt industry-sought changes that would weaken current clean-air protections," Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental group, said Wednesday. "In effect, they would be creating new loopholes that would permit big polluters to continue polluting and even increase pollution." Environmentalists and state attorneys general have already said they would challenge in court any substantial weakening of the program. Administration officials said the changes would increase energy efficiency as well as encourage emissions reductions, encourage pollution-prevention projects and investments in new technologies and modernization of facilities. EPA seeks to clarify the definition of "routine" repairs, arguing that the policy has deterred companies from conducting needed repairs, which creates pollution problems at the plants, the officials said.