WP/ New Rules Could Allow Power Plants to Pollute More

[Rose Siding]

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 31, 2005; Page A04

The Bush administration has drafted regulations that would ease pollution controls on older, dirtier power plants and could allow those that modernize to emit more pollution, rather than less.

The language could undercut dozens of pending state and federal lawsuits aimed at forcing coal-fired plants to cut back emissions of harmful pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, said lawyers who worked on the cases.

The draft rules, obtained by The Washington Post from the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group, contradict the position taken by federal lawyers who have prosecuted polluting facilities in the past, and parallel the industry's line of defense against those suits. The utilities, and the proposed new rules, take the position that decisions on whether a plant complies with the regulations after modernization should be based on how much pollution it could potentially emit per hour, rather than the current standard of how much it pollutes annually.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001949.html

[blue sky at night]

1. every time you turn around the...

Bu$H Crime Family is destroying something else, when will this madness ever end?? Pollution, it's just a theory you know.

[BattyDem]

2. My asthma is going to love this!

I have enough trouble breathing the air as it is now! :grr:

Why doesn't he just shoot us all? It would be so much faster. :-(

[genieroze]

6. I hear you. Let me ask you something. This summer I have been in

the hospital twice so far. I don't remember having this much trouble breathing before. I think * is trying to kill us.

[BattyDem]

7. Luckily, I haven't been to the hospital, but ...

I could really use some nice, clean air for a while! My asthma hasn't really gotten worse this summer, but I know several people who are having breathing problems and they never had them before.

[AuntiBush]

3. They Hate Us!

Everday, diluted with these types of stories and all one can think "now" is they just must absolutely hate us, do not care about us.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

4. I don't get it?

Their (ALL CEO'S, Congress etc.) kids and grand kids breath the same air and drink the same water. Don't they want their dynasties to survive?

Oh forget it, they believe the Rapture is coming, right?

[AuntiBush]

8. I Swear I'm Always Stating the Same Exact Thing!

I think CEO's, Corporate big-wigs, * & CO are drunk with absolute power and greed for $$$OIL$$$. The others, well, you're probably right, but a very slim few.

The majority of us believe these nut-bags are bringing it on, on the rest of us that is.

Disgusting isn't it!

[KittyWampus]

5. america lets out yet another collective scream

[I_Make_Mistakes]

9. Last year in the grocery store

I was in line behind a woman with a 7 yr. old son, she had all lactaid ice cream, milk stuff in her order. I said, Lactose intolerant? She said her 7 yr old was. I said "Isn't it weird, when we were growing up, I didn't know one lactose intolerant person?". She said. "Yeah, I know!"

Then, I said, "I don't get it, these corp. execs. are killing their own kids".

The guy in front of us, looked at me strangely, got nervous, and like ran out of the store. I always wondered, who is he? And why was he freaked?

[KoKo]

12. Yep.....you said it...

sigh...

[NVMojo]

10. Northern Nevada, Bush territory, is on line for THREE new coal-fired

power plants, one of them to serve snooty California, the others to serve foreign gold mining companies.

[Sub Atomic]

17. "snooty" california?

what's your problem?

[KittyWampus]

11. kick bastards are using disaster to suspend Clean Air Act

they WILL use this disaster to push environomental deregulation.

[LiberalEsto]

13. Oh goody!

I was worried I might not be getting my minimum daily requirement of mercury, cadmium, lead, and nitrous oxide.

[norml]

EPA PROPOSAL WOULD EFFECTIVELY EXEMPT COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS FROM KEY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press contact: Elliott Negin, 202-289-2405, or Elizabeth Heyd, 202-289-2424
If you are not a member of the press, please write to us at [e-mail] or see our contact page.

EPA PROPOSAL WOULD EFFECTIVELY EXEMPT COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS FROM KEY CLEAN AIR ACT STANDARD

NRDC Says Agency Adopts Industry Position, Which Would Increase Air Pollution Nationwide, Undermine Clean Air Act Enforcement


WASHINGTON (August 31, 2005) -- The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to issue a proposal that would allow coal-fired power plants across the country to increase their toxic emissions by crippling a key provision of the Clean Air Act, according to a draft agency document obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Specifically, the proposal would exempt coal-fired power plants from installing modern-day pollution controls when upgrading their facilities and increasing their annual pollution. (For details about the EPA proposal, click here.)

The proposal, which embraces the very industry position that EPA lawyers have successfully argued against in court, would undermine any future clean air act enforcement, the group said.

"When has the government ever decided to take the side of lawbreakers? That's what this radical proposal does," said John Walke, NRDC's clean air director. "These power plants have been breaking the law for decades, threatening public health. But now that federal authorities have finally begun to crack down on them, the Bush administration decides to gut the law."

Currently, the Clean Air Act's "new source review" program requires power plants undertaking construction activities that boost their total annual pollution to install state-of-the-art pollution controls. Under the new rulemaking proposal, however, a power plant would only have to install controls if it increased its hourly pollution. That would allow plants to upgrade equipment to enable them to operate -- and to emit more pollutants -- for many more hours per year without installing new pollution controls.


snip


http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/050831.asp

[enough]

14. I hope this doesn't get lost in all the hurricane coverage.

[PurityOfEssence]

15. But you know it will

Hell, the media's so subservient on the subject of environmental regulation that this could get swept away by a story of some kitty up a tree.

These guys are as predictable as they are despicable.

(On edit: obviously, this was meant as a reply to post #1.)

[Bushwick Bill]

16. This is brutal

We are going to need coal to keep the lights on as soon as North American natural gas production falls off of the cliff in the next few years. Without the Clean Air standards, our cities will look like 19th Century London.

[enough]

18. kick

nominating