Oct. 17, 2005 – A week after federal lawmakers scrapped a portion of an energy bill over concerns about relaxed emissions standards, the Environmental Protection Agency is seeking to enact the dropped measure as administrative policy.
Last Thursday, the EPA announced new plans to implement regulations standardizing the monitoring of energy plant emissions. The rules would alter a portion of the three-decades-old Clean Air Act known as "New Source Review," which requires energy plants to upgrade pollution controls when upgrading other areas of a facility.
The proposed changes would compare maximum hourly plant emissions from existing facilities with the expected maximum discharge in the upgraded factory, rather than measuring yearly output, to determine Clean Air compliance. Environmental groups charge that the change will actually allow companies to avoid emission control laws.
"This latest attack by the Bush administration to dismantle [New Source Review] comes from a new angle," the Sierra Club?s Nat Bund explained in a statement Friday. "Simply put, a power utility could refurbish a plant so that it does not release more pollution per hour, but could double the operating time thus releasing more pollution over the course of the year."
Noting that the New Source Review is meant to address some of the nation?s oldest energy plants, National Environmental Trust Vice President John Stanton called the proposed rule a "black hole that swallows the law."
"This is the Clean Air Act we're talking about, not the Hourly Efficiency Act," Stanton said in a statement. "A plant can be more efficient, and yet a bigger polluter if it runs for more hours. That means more soot and smog pollution, more asthma attacks, and more deaths."
Earlier this year, a federal court rebuffed states seeking more stringent enforcement of New Source Review. The ruling also required the EPA to clarify its New Source Review-related rule making, leading EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson to propose the new rules, the agency said in announcing the changes.
In August, the Natural Resources Defense Council obtained and leaked an internal EPA document warning that the rule now being proposed could seriously undermine agency enforcement actions across the country, the Washington Post reported.
House leaders dropped a nearly identical measure from the recently passed Gasoline for America?s Security Act.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson told reporters last week that the administrative move was not designed to undermine emission regulations.
"We're focused on practical, achievable results that don't get delayed by years of litigation," Johnson said. "Let me be clear: This is not about getting rid of New Source Review. This is about making it work better."
