NYT editorial: Temporary Victory on Clean Air
Last week’s record-breaking consent decree requiring American Electric Power, the nation’s largest utility, to pay $4.6 billion to clean up its act represents a satisfying, if delayed victory for the Clinton administration and other plaintiffs who brought the suit eight years ago. More than anything, though, it is a victory for millions of people downwind of the company’s plants who have been forced to breathe dirty air.
But before people start jumping for joy, they should know that the Bush administration, while claiming some credit for this settlement, is still actively trying to undermine the very law on which it was based.
The law in question is a key provision in the Clean Air Act called “new source review.” It says that companies that significantly upgrade a plant in order to generate more power must also install state-of-the-art controls to deal with the increased pollution. The utilities have long resented this law, which requires costly investments, and Vice President Dick Cheney targeted it for extinction in his infamous energy report in 2001.
Various courts, including the Supreme Court, have upheld the law. Even so, the administration has paid little attention and is still doing everything it can to torpedo the law by administrative means. The most recent assault is a proposed rule that would exempt plants from having to install new controls as long as their hourly rate of emissions does not increase as a result of any plant upgrade — even if total emissions skyrocket because the upgrades enable a plant to run longer and harder.
The A.E.P. settlement stems from an enforcement action brought in 1999 by the Clinton administration and nine state attorneys general, including New York’s Eliot Spitzer, against A.E.P. and six other utilities in the Midwest and South. The case was joined by 13 advocacy groups. Under the settlement, the company, which bitterly resisted the original suit, has agreed to install $4.6 billion in new pollution-control measures at 16 existing plants. The investments will sharply reduce the company’s emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and nitrogen oxide, which contributes to urban smog.
(Continued here.)
But before people start jumping for joy, they should know that the Bush administration, while claiming some credit for this settlement, is still actively trying to undermine the very law on which it was based.
The law in question is a key provision in the Clean Air Act called “new source review.” It says that companies that significantly upgrade a plant in order to generate more power must also install state-of-the-art controls to deal with the increased pollution. The utilities have long resented this law, which requires costly investments, and Vice President Dick Cheney targeted it for extinction in his infamous energy report in 2001.
Various courts, including the Supreme Court, have upheld the law. Even so, the administration has paid little attention and is still doing everything it can to torpedo the law by administrative means. The most recent assault is a proposed rule that would exempt plants from having to install new controls as long as their hourly rate of emissions does not increase as a result of any plant upgrade — even if total emissions skyrocket because the upgrades enable a plant to run longer and harder.
The A.E.P. settlement stems from an enforcement action brought in 1999 by the Clinton administration and nine state attorneys general, including New York’s Eliot Spitzer, against A.E.P. and six other utilities in the Midwest and South. The case was joined by 13 advocacy groups. Under the settlement, the company, which bitterly resisted the original suit, has agreed to install $4.6 billion in new pollution-control measures at 16 existing plants. The investments will sharply reduce the company’s emissions of sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, and nitrogen oxide, which contributes to urban smog.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
For some additional insights and analysis concerning the Bush administration's two-faced approach to Clean Air Act enforcement and air pollution control, check out my posting at http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jwalke/the_two_faces_of_steve.html.
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