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Bush Team Prepares to Weaken Clean Air Act at Expense of States
By Greenwatch
Thursday 03 February 2005
For several years state attorneys general have been among the most aggressive enforcers of environmental law. In 1999, for example, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other northeastern attorneys general sued several Midwestern power plants for failure to comply with provisions of the Clean Air Act when they expanded their capacities. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced an intent to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority under the same requirement last June.
Now these activist attorneys general have become a target for the Bush administration and its corporate allies. Indeed, Michael Greve of the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute has listed "curbs on state attorneys general" as one of his top three priorities, along with such hot-button issues as tort reform.
The administration's attack is personified in its proposed rewrite of important provisions of the Clean Air Act, euphemistically named the "Clear Skies" Act. Reintroduced in the Senate last week, Clear Skies would eviscerate two key Clean Air Act provisions that state attorneys general employ to sue polluting power plants.
First, Clear Skies would gut the Clean Air Act's New Source Review (NSR) program. NSR requires power plants to add new pollution controls when they expand their capacity. The Bush plan would reduce the number of situations in which power plants would have to install new pollution control technology.
"The approach taken in [Clear Skies] would allow power plant operators to keep plants operating for 100 years without applying modern emission controls," Conrad Schneider of the Clean Air Task Force told a Senate Committee last week. If NSR is crippled, dirty plants can run indefinitely without reducing their pollution emissions. The AGs trying to protect the public will be able to do nothing about it.
The second attack on state AGs comes from Clear Skies' planned weakening of the Clean Air Act's interstate air pollution remedy process (known as Section 126 petitions). A state that is out of compliance with Clean Air Act standards can file a Section 126 petition which asks the EPA to take action against out-of-state sources that are fouling its air.
North Carolina's Cooper filed such a petition against plants in 13 states last March. Northeastern state AGs filed similar petitions in the 1990s against Midwestern and Southeastern power generators.
When the EPA acts on a Section 126 petition, it usually gives the targeted power plants about three years to clean up their stacks. But Clear Skies would block any Section 126 fixes until 2014, giving polluters a nine-year pass.
Even after 2014, states asking for EPA's help to crack down on out-of-state plants would have to show they have applied every single more cost-effective measure at cutting pollution. The Clean Air Task Force's Schneider calls this "an impossible showing."
Republicans and Democrats alike support a strong role for the states in protecting the environment, a principle known as cooperative federalism. GOP governors George Pataki of New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California last month reminded the Senate that "states do the majority of the work to carry out [the Clean Air Act's] mandates."
The governors asked the Senate to "protect the cornerstones" of the Clean Air Act, specifically the strong role of the states.
By Greenwatch
Thursday 03 February 2005
For several years state attorneys general have been among the most aggressive enforcers of environmental law. In 1999, for example, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other northeastern attorneys general sued several Midwestern power plants for failure to comply with provisions of the Clean Air Act when they expanded their capacities. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced an intent to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority under the same requirement last June.
Now these activist attorneys general have become a target for the Bush administration and its corporate allies. Indeed, Michael Greve of the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute has listed "curbs on state attorneys general" as one of his top three priorities, along with such hot-button issues as tort reform.
The administration's attack is personified in its proposed rewrite of important provisions of the Clean Air Act, euphemistically named the "Clear Skies" Act. Reintroduced in the Senate last week, Clear Skies would eviscerate two key Clean Air Act provisions that state attorneys general employ to sue polluting power plants.
First, Clear Skies would gut the Clean Air Act's New Source Review (NSR) program. NSR requires power plants to add new pollution controls when they expand their capacity. The Bush plan would reduce the number of situations in which power plants would have to install new pollution control technology.
"The approach taken in [Clear Skies] would allow power plant operators to keep plants operating for 100 years without applying modern emission controls," Conrad Schneider of the Clean Air Task Force told a Senate Committee last week. If NSR is crippled, dirty plants can run indefinitely without reducing their pollution emissions. The AGs trying to protect the public will be able to do nothing about it.
The second attack on state AGs comes from Clear Skies' planned weakening of the Clean Air Act's interstate air pollution remedy process (known as Section 126 petitions). A state that is out of compliance with Clean Air Act standards can file a Section 126 petition which asks the EPA to take action against out-of-state sources that are fouling its air.
North Carolina's Cooper filed such a petition against plants in 13 states last March. Northeastern state AGs filed similar petitions in the 1990s against Midwestern and Southeastern power generators.
When the EPA acts on a Section 126 petition, it usually gives the targeted power plants about three years to clean up their stacks. But Clear Skies would block any Section 126 fixes until 2014, giving polluters a nine-year pass.
Even after 2014, states asking for EPA's help to crack down on out-of-state plants would have to show they have applied every single more cost-effective measure at cutting pollution. The Clean Air Task Force's Schneider calls this "an impossible showing."
Republicans and Democrats alike support a strong role for the states in protecting the environment, a principle known as cooperative federalism. GOP governors George Pataki of New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California last month reminded the Senate that "states do the majority of the work to carry out [the Clean Air Act's] mandates."
The governors asked the Senate to "protect the cornerstones" of the Clean Air Act, specifically the strong role of the states.
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