Have a nice SUCK on the DIRTY AIR your CORPORATE GOON W is giving to the industial world.....
It's disgusting and he once again proves he is the WORST PRESIDENT IN 200 YEARS
Administration Adopts Rule on Antipollution Exemption
August 28, 2003
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 - The Bush administration relaxed its
clean air rules today to allow thousands of industrial
plants to make upgrades without installing pollution
controls, arguing that other regulations were in place to
reduce emissions.
Utilities, which sought the new rule, said it would allow
them to make improvements that would ensure the reliability
of the power supply, a prominent issue after the Aug. 14
power failure that led to the biggest blackout in the
nation's history.
In one of its most far-reaching environmental actions, the
Bush administration signed a rule that will allow thousands
of power plants, refineries, pulp and paper mills, chemical
plants and other industrial facilities to make extensive
upgrades that increase pollutants without having to install
new antipollution devices. The rule, for which industries
have lobbied the administration for two years, could save
them billions of dollars. The Natural Resources Defense
Council estimates that more than 17,000 plants will be
affected.
Administration officials said the new rule would clarify an
otherwise subjective standard and allow plants to modernize
more easily, leading to greater efficiency and potentially
lower consumer costs.
They said it would not increase pollution because other
rules were in place to control emissions. By several
indicators, the emissions of a number of pollutants have,
in fact, declined over the last several years. In the view
of industry and the administration, the rule in question,
"new source review," has been relatively incidental to that
downward trend.
Marianne Horinko, the acting administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, said that "existing
authorities under the Clean Air Act, including the acid
rain amendments of 1990, already control emissions from
these facilities and will do so in the future."
Critics, including several state officials, took fierce
exception to this rationale, insisting that the new rule
would allow increased emissions and vowing to fight it in
court.
"I have no idea what in the world they mean," said Winston
H. Hickox, secretary of the California Environmental
Protection Agency. "Of course there are other regulations
that are specific to equipment and other things, but this
is a broad, general approach that made a lot of sense: when
you make a modification, you have to bring the plant up to
best available technology."
Mr. Hickox added: "It's not to say that the business
community has gleefully accepted this, but they have gone
along with it and recognized that it's a tool to help us
meet the air quality standards. What they're doing today is
a relaxation, and we're not going to allow that kind of
backsliding in California."
Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, which
is also going to court to stop the rule, said: "The Bush
administration is giving the green light to major
industrial plant operators to spew millions of tons more in
air pollution without being held accountable."
A recent report by the General Accounting Office, the
investigative arm of Congress, said the E.P.A. had relied
on anecdotal evidence to build a case for the new rule.
Jeffrey Holmstead, the E.P.A. administrator for air
programs, said today, "We wish we had better data, but
we're confident this rule will not have an emissions
impact."
The rule allows industrial plants to avoid installing
pollution-control devices when they replace equipment, even
if the upgrade increases pollution, as long as the cost of
the replacement is less than 20 percent of the cost of
essential production equipment.
Industry welcomed the new rule.
Thomas R. Kuhn, president
of the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for
utilities, said the rule set a common-sense standard that
would "lift a major cloud of uncertainty, boosting our
efforts to provide affordable, reliable electric service
and cleaner air."
Mr. Kuhn said the rule would encourage plants to make
efficiency improvements without fear that they would
trigger the requirement for new pollution controls. These
upgrades, he said, would allow generators to produce
electricity using less fuel, resulting in lower emissions.
But critics said the new rule could allow more emissions
because it could jeopardize several lawsuits that the
Justice Department began under the Clinton administration
and is continuing under the Bush administration.
The Justice Department contends that 51 power plants are in
violation of the Clean Air Act because they made
significant upgrades and increased their pollution without
installing pollution controls. Under the new rule, those
plants would not be in violation of the act and could make
their improvements without new pollution controls.
The department has obtained settlements from 5 of the 12
companies that operate the 51 plants. This month, it won a
major case against Ohio Edison, a unit of FirstEnergy, with
a federal judge ruling that the plant upgraded seven
coal-fired power plants illegally because it did not
install pollution equipment.
Ms. Horinko said the suits would continue to "wend their
way through the courts." She said it was unlikely that the
administration would bring new suits under the old rule,
but she said, "We'll vigorously enforce this new rule."
Critics have also contended that the administration was
rushing the rule through now so that President Bush's
nominee for E.P.A. administrator, Gov. Michael O. Leavitt
of Utah, would not be accountable for it, assuming he is
confirmed by the Senate next month.
Frank O'Donnell, of the Clean Air Trust, described Ms.
Horinko as a caretaker who was taking "the bullet" for the
administration and for Governor Leavitt.
But Ms. Horinko said she would not have signed the rule if
it were not the right thing to do.
"It increases fairness, predictability, clarity and
reliability," she said. "And it doesn't affect the
substantive safeguards of the Clean Air Act."
nytimes.com
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