Senate Coalition Insists That Deregulation Debate, When It Reaches Floor, Include Clean Air Steps

May 17, 2000

WASHINGTON (May 17, 2000) -- Telling his Senate colleagues that deregulating the electric utility industry without cleaning up air pollution from fossil-fuel fired powerplants would be a "grave mistake," Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has launched an effort to ensure that Senate action on any bill that would deregulate the industry also address environmental and public health concerns about increased emissions from irresponsible coal-fired power plants.

On May 15, Leahy and 11 co-signers sent the letter outlining these concerns to Senate Leaders Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.). Copies were also sent to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, who today convened a markup session on a utility deregulation bill. The letter informs the leadership that the coalition strongly supports the competitive market that could flourish under deregulation but will not support Senate floor consideration of a utility deregulation bill if it does not include key provisions to protect public health and the environment from power plant air pollution. Joining Leahy in this message as signatories of the letter are Senators Jack Reed (D-R.I.); Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.); Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.); John Kerry (D-Mass.); Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.); Olympia Snowe (R-Maine); Jim Jeffords (R-Vt.); Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.); Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.); Susan Collins (R-Maine); and Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.).

[COPIES OF THE LETTER ARE AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.]

Leahy said that while the nation "has made great strides in reducing air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, one of the major sources of these pollutants – older powerplants – have not been retired and replaced with cleaner burning plants" as the Clean Air Act envisioned. "The average fossil-fuel fired powerplant in the United States uses technology devised in the 1950s or before. More than 75 percent of the units currently in operation are grandfathered under the Clean Air Act of 1970 and, through the legal loophole, can discharge four to ten times as many pollutants as do responsibly-managed modern plants. The last thing that Congress should do is to give these dirty plants a competitive advantage under restructuring just because they can run cheaply and skirt the clean air law that governs other plants."

Leahy noted that major news reports throughout this year have confirmed these concerns about the grandfathered powerplants. Last fall, the Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency filed suit against 32 coal-fired powerplants alleged to have illegally made major changes to the plants without also installing new equipment to control smog, acid rain and soot. Leahy said, "These discoveries confirm the need for vigilant oversight of clean air standards when we move to a deregulated industry."

Leahy also has led in pushing to control pollution from grandfathered powerplants that contribute to mercury pollution, acid rain, and ozone smog. He has introduced an omnibus mercury pollution control bill, S.673, and a bill to extend Clean Air Act coverage to the grandfathered powerplants, S.1949. Leahy and Rep. John Sweeney (R-N.Y.) recently released a GAO report confirming pollution problems tied to the grandfathered plants. Leahy last week was joined by Jeffords, Snowe, and Collins in hosting a congressional briefing by the Izaak Walton League and the National Park Service to inform senators and their staffs about declining air quality and visibility in several national parks – a decline also directly attributed to emissions from outdated coal-fired power plants.