http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1106-01.htm
Published on Thursday,
November 6, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times
Going Backwards
EPA Drops Its Cases Against Dozens of Alleged
Polluters
by Elizabeth Shogren
QUOTE:
"This confirms my worst fears. First the administration
weakens our clean air law, and now it won't enforce it."
Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.)
WASHINGTON - The Bush
administration has dropped enforcement
actions against dozens of coal-fired power plants that were
under investigation for violating the Clean Air Act and allegedly
spewing thousands of tons of illegal pollution into the air,
EPA officials said Wednesday.
Until now, the Bush
administration had said it would vigorously
pursue the enforcement actions, which were launched by the
Clinton administration.
However, the Bush administration
recently eased a provision
of the Clean Air Act that requires companies to install modern
pollution controls when they build new plants or expand or
modernize old ones. Under the new policy, the alleged release
of pollution that sparked the original enforcement would be legal.
For months, top Bush
administration officials had said that the
new rules would apply only prospectively - that past violations
would still be pursued. But EPA officials told regional enforcement
officials in a meeting in Seattle Tuesday evening and in a conference
call Wednesday morning that the agency would no longer pursue
cases
of past violations under the old rule.
EPA attorneys were
surprised by the change in policy.
"Up until now,
people were saying it's business as usual,"
said one EPA attorney, who participated in the conference call.
He spoke on the condition that he not be identified.
The only violations
of the old rule that would be prosecuted
are the seven cases against electric utilities that are already
in court.
"This confirms
my worst fears," said Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.).
"First the administration weakens our clean air law, and
now it
won't enforce it."
The announcement provides
a tangible example of the effect
of the Bush administration's efforts to ease environmental
regulations, environmental activists said.
The Bush administration's
plan would allow companies to spend
up to 20% of the cost of a polluting unit on repairing and
modernizing it before they would be required to install new
pollution controls.
None of the investigations
against coal-fired power plants
that are being dropped are located in California.
Several of the plants,
however, are just across the border
in Arizona.
Eight cement plants
and a number of other factories in
California are being investigated for violating the old
regulation, known as new source review. EPA officials said
they believed they would still be able to pursue those cases.
EPA representatives
said in a statement: "There has been
no decision by the agency to drop all new source review
enforcement cases. As the agency has consistently stated,
we are vigorously pursing all filed cases, and we will
evaluate each pending investigation on a case-by-case
basis to determine whether it will be pursued or set
aside."
However, two attorneys
for the agency and a senior advisor
to EPA administrator Marianne Horinko confirmed that the
investigations against coal-fired power plants had been
abandoned.
Environmentalists said
EPA's decisions would result
in dirtier air for decades to come.
"It's like our
worst nightmare," said Frank O'Donnell,
executive director of Clean Air Trust, an environmental
research group. "They're taking the enforcement cop off
the beat."
Times staff writer
Gary Polakovic contributed to this report.
Copyright 2003 Los
Angeles Times
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