The Administration’s "Clear Skies" initiative is more fitting for April Fool’s Day than for Earth Day.

Instead of visiting the Northeast to propose steps that would truly clean our air, the President has come to our region to tout a plan that would actually increase -- increase! -- pollution levels allowed under current Clean Air Act law.

No region of the country is hurt more than we are in the Northeast by the Administration’s backsliding on clean air rules. Do they think Northeasterners either don’t care or will never find out the truth about this plan? Do they think we don’t know the source of the haze and the acid rain that drifts eastward across our borders?

The federal government should be on the people’s side when it comes to cleaner air and water. The Clear Skies initiative is the latest proof that the special interests have more than the President’s ear. They also have his energy plan and his budget and his environmental policy.

The Clear Skies proposal was written with industry profits in mind, not Americans’ need for cleaner air and water. This policy would undermine current environmental law, subject communities to more local pollution and leave the Northeast to the ravages of acid rain. And the Clear Skies plan’s complete punt on doing anything about carbon dioxide pollution continues the Administration’s retreat from the President’s campaign promises to roll back greenhouse gas emissions.

The hubris of the Clear Skies proposal is compounded by the fact that the Administration is also proposing to repeal a key provision of Clean Air Act law, the New Source Review. New Source Review is the particular language of Clean Air Act law making it illegal for power producers to exploit their grandfathered status and to continue avoiding clean-up costs for dirty emissions -- even though those emissions are 30 years behind modern clean air standards. The policy reversal on New Source review is so fundamental that, two months ago, a senior EPA official who has dedicated his life to clean air policy resigned over its perverse consequences for cleaner air.

Several companies have argued that the Administration needs to repeal New Source Review so that they can "increase energy efficiency." This is an obvious red herring. The real reason for requesting the repeal of New Source Review is that gutting the provision gets energy companies off the hook for billions of dollars in fines they would have to pay under successful lawsuits filed by the Clinton Administration. They want a license to pollute and a free pass to avoid the fines for it.

Legislation that would truly clear our Northeastern skies does exist. Last spring I joined with Senator Jim Jeffords when he introduced strong bipartisan energy legislation that makes real cuts in the amounts of acid rain-causing pollutants and toxic mercury spewing from Midwestern coal-fired power plants. The cuts we proposed then, unlike those of the Clear Skies plan, would truly turn around acid rain and mercury damage already done to our Northern watersheds and forests. Furthermore, our legislation would require mandatory caps on excess carbon dioxide emissions, giving the United States a leadership role in the fight to mitigate global climate change.

Vermonters deserve clean air, clean water, healthy forests and sound environmental stewardship for their children and their communities. The President’s Clear Skies plan would give us nothing. It would simply continue to send dirty plumes of soot and mercury over our state. I hope the President will reconsider his environmental policies and his allegiances on questions of environmental and energy policy.

This Earth Day does come at a time when some fresh progress is evident as we pause to reflect on our choices in caring for our planet's most precious, life-sustaining natural resources. Last week in the Senate, two attempts by special interests to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were soundly defeated in a bipartisan vote.

Republicans and Democrats alike recognized that we can no more drill our way to energy independence than we can dig ourselves out of a hole. To truly gain energy security, Americans want investments in the cleaner energy technologies of the future, not more subsidies for the dinosaur energy policies of the past.

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