Leahy Hits White House’s Rollback
Of Clean Air Standards For Old Power Plants

WASHINGTON (Nov. 22) – Sen. Patrick Leahy was sharply critical of clean air rule changes unveiled Friday that would make it easier for corporate polluters to increase emissions from old power plants without any new pollution controls.

“It should surprise no one that EPA waited until after the election and right before the holidays to foist this turkey on the American people,” he said.

The rollback of standards under the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review (NSR) Program were announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and were prompted by directives arising from Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force, which decided to accelerate the permitting process for industrial facilities at the expense of air quality.

In July, the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, headed, respectively, by Leahy and Sen. Jim Jeffords, held a joint hearing to examine how the Energy Task Force’s instructions to “review” NSR and the preliminary rules proposed by EPA in June would affect pending litigation against NSR violators.  The panels also looked at how the proposed rule would affect states’ own efforts to reduce air pollution.  State attorneys general who testified at the July hearing said the changes would undermine their states’ abilities to clean their air more than federal pollution standards would. 

“Christmas is coming early this year for corporate polluters,” said Leahy.  “EPA cannot show how these changes will improve air quality or reduce the health risks to children across the nation.  These changes are intended not to clean the air but to breathe new life into old plants spewing toxic pollutants, and much of that pollution is headed to New England.  The Administration has undermined a program whose original intent was to retire these ancient plants long ago."

Leahy continued:  “I had hoped that EPA Administrator Christine Whitman would have gone back to her roots as an advocate for states’ rights and tougher clean air rules, but instead she is letting corporate polluters off the legal hook that, in the past, has lowered  air pollution and led to million-dollar settlements with some of the biggest offenders.  This judicial bailout for corporate polluters not only takes cleaner air as a hostage; it also could mean that billions of dollars that would go to the federal treasury from pending court cases will now be lost.”

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