ChimpCo Distorts Air Pollution Study - Congressional Research Service

[hatrack]

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- A Bush administration analysis of air pollution legislation uses assumptions that boost the benefits of its own proposal while overstating the costs of alternatives, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

An Oct. 27 analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency is ``not as useful as one could hope,'' because of assumptions used that favor President George W. Bush's ``Clear Skies'' initiative, the non-partisan research group wrote in a Nov. 23 report. Meanwhile, cost estimates of competing proposals from Senators Thomas Carper, a Delaware Democrat, and James Jeffords, an independent from Vermont, are overstated, the group found.

The Bush legislation, which aims to cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide by 70 percent after 2018, stalled in Congress earlier this year. Proposals by Carper and Jeffords would require steeper and faster reductions, and also would call for cuts in carbon dioxide emissions linked to global warming.

Baseline assumptions used by the EPA result in ``an analysis that some will argue is no longer sufficiently up-to-date to contribute substantively to congressional debate,'' the report found. The administration's plan failed to overcome a 9-9 tie on March 9 in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, in part because a comparison of provisions in the competing proposals had not been done, the report said. The EPA agreed to Carper's request for an analysis after the vote.

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