Reaction Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)

To EPA Inspector General’s Rebuke Of Administration’s Loophole For Coal-Fired Powerplants

(6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 30, 2004)

[(THURSDAY, Sept. 30) – The Inspector General for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) late Thursday released a report finding that the Bush Administration’s weakened rule for industrial pollution sites (New Source Review rule, issued in October 2003) has “seriously hampered OECA settlement activities, existing enforcement cases and the development of future cases.”  The New Source Review (NSR) provision of the Clean Air Act requires coal-fired power plants and oil refineries to install modern pollution control technology when those plants are modified and their emissions are increased.  The Bush Administration proposal would allow plants to escape this requirement if the cost of each modification is less than 20 percent of the cost of an entire new unit.  The Inspector General’s report includes comments from EPA enforcement officials suggesting that the trigger, instead, should be no higher than 0.75 percent – more than 25 times stricter than the Bush standard.  At a July 2002 joint hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee (then chaired by Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt.), Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, responded to a direct question from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) – then chairman of the Judiciary Committee -- by testifying that the NSR changes would not affect EPA enforcement cases.  Since that testimony, EPA has insisted that the NSR changes would only be prospective and would not diminish existing enforcement actions or affect the investigation of past violations.  At a February 2004 Democratic Policy Committee hearing, Leahy and other senators heard from former EPA officials who testified that the changes to NSR would, in fact, allow coal-fired powerplants to spew millions of tons of pollutants into the air and that EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Air Act was severely restricted – conclusions that the IG’s report confirms.  Following is Leahy’s reaction to the report:]

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“This report confirms that the Bush Administration is bending environmental laws in real ways that make a real difference in the amount of pollution that is pumped into our air and water.  Cozy is costly when you tally the Bush EPA’s favors to big polluters and the toll those favors is taking on the public’s health.

“The Bush strategy to let big polluters off the hook has worked.  They cannot deny it any longer.  Utility giants got a get-out-of-court-free card, while the American people get stuck with millions of tons of pollution.  After two years of ignoring the problem, Congress now needs to hold hearings and put EPA back in the job of protecting the public, not the polluters.”

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