Big Win for Clean Air!

Big Win for Clean Air!
EPA Unveils Rule to Slash Power Plant Pollution



Coal-burning power plants emit a large portion of the gases that form smog and soot. (Photo: Phillip J. Redman, U.S. Geological Survey)


Millions of Americans living with unhealthy air can now breathe a big sigh of relief. In a welcome move this week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a rule into action that will make the biggest cuts to smog- and soot-forming pollution in a decade. Thanks to our team of experts who helped lead the successful push, the just-announced Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) will help prevent thousands and thousands of asthma attacks and deaths every year through its deep and cost-effective reductions. What's more, the rule renders the flawed Clear Skies bill -- the single greatest attack on our nation's bedrock clean air protections in the last 30 years -- unnecessary.

The indisputable need to cut smokestack pollution resonates in the story of one Kentucky woman whose two grandchildren in Boyd County have asthma and must use inhalers and other medications to help their breathing problems. "The constant pollution from power plant smokestacks nearby has worsened (and I believe caused) their conditions," the grandmother says. "I worry how all this air pollution will impact their overall health."

New Tool Will Cut Dangerous Smokestack Pollution

Her concerns are real. More than half of all Americans live in or near places that do not meet federal air quality health standards. This is the case with Boyd County, Kentucky, which is in nontattainment for EPA's health-based standards for fine particle pollution and ozone. The good news is that CAIR will help reduce fine particle pollution and bring the county into compliance for ozone standards by 2010, aiding those like the Kentucky woman and her grandchildren to breathe healthier air. (More on how CAIR will improve Kentucky's air quality)

Smokestack pollution from coal-fired power plants discharge two-thirds of the nation's sulfur dioxide (SO2) and one-fifth of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) pollution. These are critical ingredients in the dangerous particulate (soot) and ozone (smog) pollution that blankets communities across the nation.

The pollution spewed out from smokestacks affects not just those living nearby. Tall smokestacks belch out gases that are windblown hundreds of miles, far away from where the pollution originated. Emissions from Ohio, for example, end up affecting people living in New York and New England. In some areas of the country, as much as 30-40% of air pollution drifts over from out of state.

What CAIR Does for Air

The new CAIR rule, which makes the biggest cuts to smog- and soot-forming power plant pollution in a decade, giving areas with unhealthy air a strong tool within the framework of the Clean Air Act to address vital human health protections. Emissions will be reduced and capped far below 2002 levels, making possible drastic cuts in dangerous pollutants. By 2015 CAIR will:

Slash SO2 pollution by 73%;
Reduce NOx pollution by 61%;
Prevent 17,000 deaths, 700,000 acute bronchitis and asthma attacks and 2.2 million absences from work and school; and
Produce more than $20 in benefits for every dollar spent!
Our Air Team Helped Lay the Groundwork

Environmental Defense has long been fighting for clean, healthy air, going to court if necessary for better enforcement of pollution laws. Environmental Defense took action and subsequently worked with EPA to ensure that communities around the country were given notice that they had unhealthy levels of ozone smog. This increased the urgency of finding ways to help states and localities reduce harmful smog and fine particle pollution. And we urged EPA to take action through regulatory rather than legislative means.

In 2004, EPA began identifying counties not meeting the federal air quality health standards for fine soot pollution. (More on EPA actions)

Our 2004 report Stop Blowing Smoke in the Heartland showed the tremendous health benefits that could be reaped by an interstate air rule. Our analysis helped show how cost-effective pollution cuts could be achieved by capping emissions and trading credits through a market-based approach similar to the one we pioneered for acid rain in 1990.

Some states have not waited for federal action to come up with strategies to cut smokestack pollution. In 2002, North Carolina adopted a Clean Smokestack Act proposed by Environmental Defense that substantially lowers SO2 and NOx from power plants statewide.

The final nudge to making CAIR a reality came from North Carolina's efforts to require EPA to address power plant pollution that drifts over to North Carolina from other states.

"EPA's action is a big breath of fresh air for the millions of Americans across the eastern U.S. suffering from unhealthy particulate and smog pollution," said Environmental Defense president Fred Krupp. "This rule shows how the nation can efficiently reduce the particulate and smog pollution from power plant smokestacks by carrying out the bedrock human health protections of the Clean Air Act. We applaud the EPA for taking the biggest step in a decade to cut particulate and smog pollution from power plant smokestacks."

Misnamed Clear Skies Would Clear the Way for Polluters to Pollute More

Although EPA was poised to finalize CAIR by the end of 2004, in mid-December Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) sidelined the rule by introducing the industry-backed, polluter-friendly Clear Skies legislation, first introduced by the Bush Administration in 2002 and touted as the best way to cut smokestack pollution. Unable to muster one vote to break the deadlock over the bill in the Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe failed to get the bill onto to the Senate floor -- for now.

But both the Administration and Senator Inhofe still want to enact Clear Skies.

Since CAIR provides the basic infrastructure for cutting smog- and soot-forming pollution through provisions of the Clean Air Act, Clear Skies is not needed. The Clean Air Act has brought cleaner, healthier air to millions, since its passage over 30 years ago. The nation has cut lead pollution by 98%, carbon monoxide by 48% and sulfur dioxide by 35%, even as the gross domestic product has more than doubled.

Clear Skies has been unmasked for what it is - a smoke-and-mirrors attempt to repeal Clean Air Act protections from power plants and industrial sources, a result that cannot be accomplished through administrative action.

In a nutshell, Clear Skies legislation would clear the way for power plants and industrial sources to pollute more. Clear Skies would:

Repeal the requirement that each power plant do the maximum to cut toxic mercury pollution;
Exempt new and existing power plants from the Clean Air Act's "new source review" provisions that require plants to install state-of-the-art pollution control equipment when they expand or upgrade operations;
Exempt thousands of industrial facilities nationwide from pollution control requirements for lead, arsenic, hydrogen chloride and other toxic contaminants;
Postpone Clean Air Act deadlines to restore healthy air in major eastern cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City, continuing ongoing harm to children and others with asthma and lung disease; and
Curtail states' rights to protect their citizens from harmful smokestack pollution.
In addition, the supposed pollution caps on sulfur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen referred to in Clear Skies are illusory because "opt-in" provisions allow every industrial source in the nation that discharges pollution "through a stack or duct" to take advantage of new loopholes.

Senators voting against Clear Skies are Jim Jeffords (I-VT), Max Baucus (D-MT), Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Thomas Carper (D-DE), Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Barack Obama (D-IL)

"All Americans can breathe a little easier because nine courageous senators withstood a fierce lobbying effort to weaken the Clean Air Act," said Environmental Defense president Fred Krupp.

http://www.environmentaldefense.org/article.cfm?ContentID=4358

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