A Clear Skies Smokescreen
Frank O'Donnell
March 07, 2005
From the outset, the real goal of the Clear Skies Act has been to cut
breaks for the biggest polluters-to postpone cleanup deadlines into
the mid- 2020s, to eliminate pesky provisions of current law and to
take away states' rights to enforce the law. Now Bush allies in the
Senate are trying to strong-arm moderates into accepting Clear Skies,
instead of standing for the existing Clean Air Act's stronger
polluter requirements. Veteran environmentalist Frank O'Donnell
explains.
Frank O'Donnell is president of Clean Air Watch, a 501 (c) 3
non-partisan, non-profit organization aimed at educating the public
about clean air and the need for an effective Clean Air Act. Visit
the website at www.cleanairwatch.org.
On March 4, when President Bush named EPA career scientist Stephen
Johnson as the agency's new head, the president declared that
Johnson's main job would be selling the so-called "clear skies" plan
to Congress.
It may have been a last-ditch effort to breathe new life into the
president's ill-named, industry-friendly proposal. If the plan isn't
already six feet under, it's clear that some lawmakers are eyeing the
shovels.
Even so, the Bush administration and its corporate allies are
feverishly lobbying in an effort to ram this polluter protection plan
through a closely divided Senate. Their strategy is focused on
picking off moderate Senate Democrats such as Barack Obama, D-Ill.,
and Max Baucus, D-Mont. (In what appears to have been an audition
for his new job, Johnson recently toured Obama's Illinois to promote
the Bush plan in the local media.) It's still unclear whether any of
the moderates will bend under the White House pressure.
Given the complex spiderwork of lies spun by the White House and its
corporate allies on this issue, it might be worth a moment to step
back and examine what the "clear skies" fuss is all about.
To put the issue in context, it's worth recalling that when President
Clinton left office, the biggest electric power polluters-including
Southern Company, American Electric Power and Cinergy-were running
scared. Using authorities in the existing Clean Air Act, the Clinton
administration had brought lawsuits aimed at compelling cleanup of
aging, coal-burning power plants that had been illegally modified to
keep running without modern pollution controls. The Clinton EPA had
also set in motion a plan to require every power plant in the nation
to clean up toxic mercury emissions by 2008.
No sooner had the Bush administration taken office than these and
other big polluters (all big Bush campaign contributors) lined up
outside Vice President Cheney's office to request regulatory
relief. Cheney, in turn, directed the EPA to reconsider its policy of
enforcing the law. In the process, the Bush administration developed
a "don't ask, don't tell" approach to air pollution-don't ask the
biggest polluters to clean up, and don't tell the public the truth
about what's really happening. Enforcement trailed off, and Bush
appointees crafted an illegal plan to permit power companies to
continue spewing toxic mercury for decades.
But the big power companies remained concerned that a future
administration could revive enforcement of the law. And so the "clear
skies" plan was born, with support of the biggest and worst power
polluters. From the outset, the real goal has been to cut breaks for
the biggest polluters-to postpone cleanup deadlines into the mid-
2020s, to eliminate pesky provisions of current law and to take away
states' rights that would permit a state attorney general like New
York's Eliot Spitzer to enforce the law. The Bush plan also would,
in effect, grant coal-burning power companies a shield against calls
for them to limit carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.
The White House has consistently misrepresented the "clear skies"
plan since it was first unveiled three years ago. It claimed that the
Clean Air Act must be changed to make further progress against air
pollution. [That administration lie was caught after EPA staffers
leaked an agency PowerPoint presentation, which noted that "business
as usual"-that is, enforcement of the existing Clean Air Act-would
mean cleaner air more quickly than a rewrite of the law.]
Carrying the administration's legislative spear in the Senate are
James Inhofe, R-Okla.,-chairman of the Senate Environment and Public
Works Committee, perhaps best known for declaring global warming a
"hoax"-and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, whose home-state power companies
desperately want to evade the cleanup requirements of existing law.
To date, the Inhofe committee has been deadlocked 9-9 as Sen. Lincoln
Chafee, R-R.I., has joined Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., and the
Democratic minority in opposing the Bush plan. Efforts by the
Republican majority to break the deadlock have taken on comic opera
dimensions. (In a blatant bid to buy Baucus' vote, Inhofe introduced
a new draft of the bill with special privileges for a Montana coal
mine.)
Emerging as leader of the committee's pivotal "moderate" faction
(which includes Baucus, Chafee and Obama) is soft-spoken Sen. Tom
Carper, D-Del., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Clean Air
Subcommittee. Carper has repeatedly said he is open to a compromise
that might simplify existing law-especially if coupled with mandatory
limits on global warming pollution from power plants. But Carper is
insisting that the administration provide him more analysis of
alternatives before he agrees to any compromise.
There are many reasons why Carper and his colleagues should not be
stampeded into accepting a weakening of the Clean Air Act. Here's
just one example: the EPA is expected this week to announce new
"clean air interstate" rules. Those rules, being issued under the
authority of current law, will call for emissions reductions from
power plants without the regulatory relief contained in "clear
skies."
Those interstate rules won't be perfect. As many states in the
Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have noted, EPA could use the authority of
existing law to make deeper pollution reductions and do it more
quickly.
However, those rules do demonstrate that the existing Clean Air Act
already contains tools needed to make continuing progress against air
pollution. Rewriting the law isn't necessary. Those rules show the
Bush-Inhofe-Voinovich legislative plan off for what it really is-a
smokescreen to help corporate outlaws evade other clean-air
requirements.
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