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Clean Air Trust
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 8, 2003
11:04 AM
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CONTACT:
Clean
Air Trust
Frank O'Donnell, 202-785-9625
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The Bush Administration's Air Pollution Plan
Would Shred Current Clean Air Act Protections, Says Clean Air
Trust
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| WASHINGTON
- April 8 - The Bush Administration's air pollution plan, euphemistically
called the "Clear Skies Initiative," would shred current Clean
Air Act protections, the nonprofit Clean Air Trust noted today.
The Administration plan is supported by some of the nation's biggest
polluters and environmental outlaws such as American Electric
Power. And no wonder: the plan would eliminate numerous tools
in current law designed to produce cleaner air and better public
health. It would give special deals to big polluters. Environmental
experts have noted that it would mean more pollution in the future
than would faithful enforcement of current law.
A United States
Senate subcommittee has scheduled its first hearing on the plan
today. Although the Bush Administration has touted this as a bill
that would only affect electric power plants, other smokestack
industries would also be permitted to take advantage of huge new
loopholes. The Clean Air Trust undertook this analysis to examine
some of the key tools in existing law that would be eliminated
or modified by the Administration plan.
Among other
things, the bill:
-- Could postpone
achievement of public health standards for nearly a quarter of
a century. The Administration plan would automatically postpone
deadlines for meeting public health standards for smog (ozone)
and fine particle soot (PM 2.5) until 2015. (Existing law would
require health standards to be met by 2009 or earlier.) It would
also create a whole new category of "transitional" areas for 8-hour
ozone or PM 2.5 if states claim they will meet the standards by
2015. But if a "transitional" area fails to meet the standards
by 2016, the deadlines simply get postponed even farther into
the future. (The bill says EPA must designate such an area as
"nonattainment" in 2017, after which the state would have until
2020 to submit a cleanup plan. The actual cleanup wouldn't happen
until well into the 2020s.) Because of the "banking and trading"
provisions of the Administration proposal, its pollution targets
might not be achieved until around the same time frame. As our
colleagues at the Environmental Integrity Project have noted,
the Administration's alleged "pollution caps" would not be met
even by 2026!
-- Would exempt
affected smokestack plants from new source review requirements,
meaning that existing plants could legally increase their pollution.
These plants would also avoid the current requirements to use
the cleanest possible technology (the "lowest achievable emission
rate") and to offset any increased pollution in areas with unhealthful
air. In other words, they could cause more public health damage
in areas that already have dirty air.
-- Lets other
smokestack industries off the hook. The Administration would allow
every major industrial source built or modified in "transitional"
areas to make health problems worse by evading current requirements
to offset new emissions and use the cleanest possible technology.
In other words, the Administration would grant new loopholes to
refineries, chemical plants, paper mills, cement plants and other
smokestack factories. All would be allowed to belch out more pollution
in areas that already have dirty air.
-- Would help
the road-building lobby. The bill would also help the road-building
highway lobby (cement, asphalt, etc.) by exempting "transitional"
areas from requirements that transportation plans dovetail with
state air quality plans.
-- Throws much-touted
future emission reductions in doubt. The Administration plan would
require EPA, in "consultation" with the Department of Energy,
to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the "second phase" of emission
limits (slated for 2018). In 2009, EPA would report the findings
separately for each pollutant to Congress, which could then change
the emission limits. (This raises the very real prospect that
EPA could declare that emission reductions for nitrogen oxides
and mercury don't pass the cost test; certainly industry would
make that argument as it has in the past. EPA and the Department
of Energy would also examine the impact of controls on "fuel diversity"
and "electric reliability" - buzzwords used by industry to block
pollution controls.)
-- Would permit
any industrial plant that emits sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides
pollution "only through a stack or duct" to take advantage of
all the bill's loopholes.
-- Would eliminate
current mercury pollution standards for electric power plants.
Under existing law, mercury pollution would be reduced by up to
90 percent -- by December 2007 under a prior legal consent agreement.
These standards would be repealed under the Administration plan,
which would delay any reduction in mercury until 2010. Even in
2018 - more than a decade later than the deadline under current
law - mercury emissions could be higher than current law would
require in 2007.
-- Would permit
"hot spots" of toxic mercury. The Administration plan would permit
electric power companies to "trade" emission "credits" for mercury
- something that cannot be done under existing law. Indeed, existing
law does not permit trading of any toxic air pollutant. Under
the Administration plan, some plants could actually increase their
mercury emissions.
-- Would eliminate
"residual risk" requirements for mercury. Existing law says EPA
must require additional mercury controls if the first phase of
controls - which are technology-based - continues to leave people
at risk. The Administration bill would kill this requirement.
-- Would delay
toxic pollution (MACT) standards for other pollutants from electric
power plants until after 2018. Under existing law, standards for
other toxic pollutants are to be met by December 2007.
-- Would freeze
the development of cleaner technology for electric power plants
by stipulating that new plants need only meet a static "new source"
standard rather than a "best available technology" standard that
achieves greater emission reductions over time as technology evolves.
Indeed, the Administration plan would ensure that new plants are
built with obsolete technology.
-- Would eliminate
current protections for national parks. Would eliminate the current
requirement that requires cleanup of existing big sources of pollution
that threaten national parks (The so-called "Best Available Retrofit
Technology" or BART requirement). It would also eliminate requirements
for new electric power plants that could harm national parks.
Requirements would be maintained only for sources within 50 kilometers
(30 miles) of a national park, even though sources hundreds of
miles away can harm air quality in the parks.
-- Would weaken
current requirements designed to keep clean-air areas clean. New
or modified plants could pollute all the way up to public health
standards. This, in effect, would repeal the "nondegredation"
provisions of existing law that are designed to protect clean-air
areas from air quality degredation.
-- Would gut
interstate pollution protections (Section 126) by prohibiting
any downwind state from bringing an action to force cleanup in
upwind states' interstate cleanup before 2012; afterwards, the
bill says EPA shall not require emission reductions in upwind
states unless it determines that the reductions can happen at
least as cost-effectively as control of other sources AND that
the emission reductions would improve air quality in the downwind
state at least as cost effectively as other cleanup measures.
This is a fundamental attack on states' rights.
-- Would prohibit
states from interfering with emission trading. States would not
be permitted to enforce state laws that prohibit trading between
in-state sources and sources in upwind states.
-- Would preempt
states from adopting tougher new source review requirements by
stipulating that they cannot take "credit" for tougher controls
(than what would become non-existent federal requirements) in
attainment or maintenance plans.
-- Could delay
and weaken the Clinton Administration plan designed to reduce
summertime emissions of smog-forming nitrogen oxides pollution
from electric power plants in 21 states by 2004. (The Administration
plan would permit companies to postpone meeting the 2004 requirement
for a year. It would also permit pollution rates to increase starting
in 2008.)
-- Would make
it impossible to shut down a plant that violates the law - in
order to "ensure reliability of the electric system."
###
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