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Is the EPA Gutting Clean Air? Associated Press Page 1 of 1 01:48 PM Dec. 31, 2002 PT WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency formally issued major changes to clean air rules for utilities, refineries and manufacturers Tuesday, prompting a court challenge hours later from a coalition of New England and mid-Atlantic states. "The Bush administration has taken an action that will bring more acid rain, more smog, more asthma and more respiratory disease to millions of Americans," said Eliot Spitzer, New York's attorney general. EPA's easing of certain requirements of the Clean Air Act's "New Source Review" program was published in the government's Federal Register, making them official. The program affects whether expensive new anti-pollution equipment must be installed when industrial facilities are modernized. Agency spokesman Joe Martyr said that "what we went final with we feel will be a positive for the environment." The EPA also proposed a range of ideas for defining "routine maintenance" by coal-fired power plants a term that has led to much confusion and debate. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman has said the new rules would encourage emissions reductions by giving utilities and refinery operators new flexibility. The old program, she said, "deterred companies from implementing projects that would increase energy efficiency and decrease air pollution." But Spitzer said issuing the final regulations on New Year's Eve, when much of the public's attention was diverted, was further evidence the administration "continues to try to hide its domestic agenda under the cloak of darkness." Spitzer and his counterparts in eight other states say they are harmed by smog and acid rain from the nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants and other industrial sources. "I find it incredible that we would have to resort to a lawsuit to prevent the Bush administration from gutting the Clean Air Act," said G. Steven Rowe, Maine's attorney general. The states sued Tuesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. New York was joined by Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont in petitioning the appeals court to review the new rule. According to Spitzer's office, the lawsuit focuses on four elements of the new rules affecting new technology, a new emissions test, a revised approach for calculating emissions levels and a cap on pollution levels set according to entire plants rather than specific components being upgraded. Martyr countered that it was unclear on what grounds the states were suing and said the motives appeared to be political. "There are those who would reach the conclusion that this appears to be more of a political step than based on other reasons," he said. Environmental groups also planned to join the legal challenge to the administration. "Our argument is ultimately going to be that these are illegal changes to the Clean Air Act and the EPA has gone beyond its authority in granting loopholes to smokestack industries," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental advocacy group. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
