In 1977, environmentalists celebrated a landmark new clean air law, and eagerly anticipated dancing on the graves of several hundred old, pollution-belching coal-fired power plants around the country. The law, they were certain, was clear: when those old plants made significant repairs or upgrades, they’d also have to add state-of-the-art pollution controls. That would be their death knell, they believed, because it would be too expensive to keep the antiquated plants running.
But the years passed and nothing happened. Most of the plants kept running, and spewing tons of pollution. Strangely, the EPA seemed to forget about them. Finally, in 1999, 22 years after the law was passed, federal prosecutors sued 51 plants around the country, including one in downstate Illinois, accusing them of flouting the law by undertaking major upgrades without installing new controls.
In recent years a couple of companies have settled, and two more came to the bargaining table, EPA officials said. Environmentalists’ hopes of a grave-stomping party were rekindled.
Those hopes were shattered when President Bush recently announced new rules that freed the plants to operate far into the future. The new rules allow plants to repair facilities and expand production without having to install a broad range of emissions controls. And they give companies greater leeway to pollute without triggering requirements for new pollution controls.
The industry giants, heavy contributors to Republican candidates, rejoiced. Two companies that had agreed to settle with the EPA backed out of negotiations. “That was a killer for me,” said Eric Schaeffer, former director of the office of regulatory enforcement for EPA, who resigned in February, partly in response to the president’s environmental policies.
State attorneys general in New York and Connecticut are threatening to sue, since a lot of the pollution produced in the Midwest winds up hanging over cities in the East. Congress is also taking up the fight. Last month, a bill that would force those plants to clean up by 2013 took its first step in the Senate, although even supporters admit its overall prospects do not seem bright.
The Clinton administration tried to negotiate a deal in 1996 to loosen the pollution rules. But there was a crucial difference: Clinton offered to loosen the rules if the utilities would agree to steeper reductions in pollution than otherwise were called for in the law. Neither environmentalists nor industry liked that deal.
Overheated rhetoric is blasting from both sides now, but the debate really is about how clean we want to make the air, how fast we want it done, and how much we’re willing to pay for it, mainly in terms of higher electric costs.
No matter what happens in the current debate, emissions levels in general are likely to drop over the next decade in most areas because of a complex set of controls and new technologies already in place, many experts say.
What the administration and environmentalists are arguing about now is how far those levels should drop, and how fast. Bush’s proposal would set a 2017 deadline to significantly cut emissions; Democrats want deeper cuts by 2008.
Clean air is not free and pollution isn’t abstract. It’s clearly measurable in tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and mercury pumped into the atmosphere–much of it from those aging, coal-fired power plants. It is also measured in more respiratory illness and deaths.
It’s no surprise that a Republican administration has a bias toward deregulation of industry, and this page generally supports those efforts. But there’s something bigger at stake here and the president is missing it. In the competition between electric rates and the environment, most Americans–including most Republicans–will choose the environment.
The Bush administration said that it intends to pursue the lawsuits against the old plants. But its decision to ease the rules now, at a time when several companies had come to the bargaining table, sends a mixed message and undercuts its own position just as victory seemed within reach. Bush should keep the pressure on the old plants to clean up or shut down.
