http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/1010-02.htm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 10, 2003
9:23 AM
CONTACT: Public Citizen
(http://www.citizen.org/)
Newsroom: 202-588-7742
Bush
Appointees Gut Air Quality Rule and Give Congress False Information
About the Consequences
WASHINGTON - October
10 - The Bush administration has gone to great
lengths, even so far as giving false information to Congress,
to gut
a clean air regulation opposed by electric utilities - an industry
that funneled $4.8 million into Bush’s 2000 campaign, according
to
a Public Citizen report released today.
Documents and discussions
with former U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) officials reveal that Bush appointees made untrue
statements
to two Senate committees when asked if a weakened New Source Review
(NSR)
rule was expected to jeopardize lawsuits against electric utilities
accused of modifying coal-fired plants in violation of NSR. Contrary
to what senators were told, EPA staffers had concluded that the
new
rule would undercut enforcement cases that had the potential to
reduce
air pollution from U.S. electric utilities by 50 percent annually.
The states and companies
facing these enforcement actions include:
Alabama: Southern Co. (also has TVA plants); Florida: Tampa Electric
Co.
(Tampa); Georgia: Southern Co. (Atlanta); Indiana: Vectren/Southern
Indiana (Evansville); Illinois: Dynegy (Houston) and Illinois
Power
(Decatur); Kentucky: TVA; New Jersey: PSEG (Newark); North Carolina:
Duke Energy Corp. (Charlotte); Ohio: American Electric Power (Columbus),
Cinergy (Cincinnati) and First Energy (Akron); South Carolina:
Duke Power;
Tennessee: TVA (Knoxville); Virginia: Dominion Virginia Power
(Richmond);
West Virginia: American Electric Power; and Wisconsin: Wisconsin
Electric
(Milwaukee).
"This is an example
of big campaign donors getting huge paybacks,"
said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. "These
electric
utilities were rewarded with positions on the Department of Energy’s
transition team, with free access to Vice President Cheney’s
secret
energy task force. Now, a crucial air quality rule has been watered
down as Cheney’s task force recommended."
As early as May 1999,
the electric utility industry’s trade association
had urged members to make bundled donations to the Bush fundraising
machine. That arm-twisting bore fruit in August 2003, when the
EPA
issued a new NSR rule that could shield electric utilities from
billions
of dollars in fines and compliance costs at their coal-fired plants.
Public Citizen’s
report, EPA’s Smoke Screen: How Deception of Congress,
Campaign Contributions and Political Connections Gutted a Key
Clean Air
Rule (http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/),
has found that:
In sworn testimony,
Jeffrey Holmstead, assistant administrator for the
EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, told two Senate committees
that the
EPA enforcement office had concluded that lawsuits against nine
utilities
for violating the Clean Air Act would not be undercut by changes
to the
NSR rule. In fact, two former senior EPA officials say, the consensus
in the enforcement office was the opposite.
The new NSR rule impairs
the ability of the government to obtain favorable
settlements or judgments against companies that have violated
the rules
in the past. Already, the new rule has been cited by electric
utilities
defending themselves in lawsuits in Ohio and Indiana. And Acting
EPA
Administrator Marianne Horinko has said the government is unlikely
to
bring new compliance suits based on violations of the previous
NSR rule.
In the 2000 campaign,
executives, employees and PACs of the electric
utility industry - virtually all of which is affected by NSR -
gave
$4.8 million to the Bush campaign, the Republican National Committee
(RNC) and the inaugural committee. That total included $1.85 million
from the four electric utilities facing the largest NSR lawsuits
and
the leading industry trade association. Another five utilities
also
facing NSR lawsuits gave an additional $424,700.
In 2001, Cheney’s
energy task force consulted with at least three
large utilities facing NSR lawsuits and with lobbyists representing
all nine companies facing NSR litigation. Documents reveal that
the
task force met with representatives of Southern Co. at least seven
times and with the industry’s trade association, the Edison
Electric
Institute (EEI), at least 14 times. In May 2001, the task force
called
for re-evaluations of NSR by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
and
the EPA.
The list of Bush campaign
"Pioneers" - a designation given to fundraisers
in the 2000 campaign who bundled $100,000 in contributions - included
FirstEnergy President Anthony Alexander; Thomas Kuhn, president
of EEI;
and super-lobbyist and former RNC Chairman Haley Barbour, who
represented
Southern Co. and one of the groups set up by the companies to
lobby and
funnel campaign money, the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council
(ERCC).
Bush’s Energy
Department transition team included Kuhn from EEI
and officials from three companies facing NSR litigation: Alexander,
president of FirstEnergy, Stephen Wakefield, a vice president
for
Southern Co., and Thomas Farrell, a vice president of Dominion.
Numerous Bush EPA and
DOJ appointees responsible for NSR policy and
enforcement have industry backgrounds. Additionally, weeks after
the
new NSR rule was finalized, two EPA officials left for jobs working
for or lobbying on behalf of electric utilities.
"The Bush administration’s
approach to environmental violations is
to change the laws - in exchange for millions in contributions
from
the violators," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s
Congress Watch. "This administration’s willingness
to sacrifice public
health by exchanging environmental policy revisions for cash is
so
extreme that they are now changing the enforcement of those rules
retroactively."
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