Bush Goes It Alone On Pollution

Bush Goes It Alone On Pollution

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2003
"The reality is that what they are proposing will still allow industry to pollute too much for too long. And that will lead to continuing health problems."
Frank O'Donnell, Clean Air Trust



(AP) Unable to get Congress to endorse its plan to cut air pollution, the Bush administration is crafting a string of regulations that would accomplish the same ends.

Power plants would have to cut emissions sharply, but also be given flexibility — and more time — to do it.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed new requirements Thursday calling on power plants in 30 states to reduce the amount of smog- and soot-forming chemicals they release from their smokestacks. It shortly will announce a rule to cut mercury emissions as well.

The level of pollution reductions, the timetable and the strategy for getting it done mirror closely proposals the administration offered Congress nearly two years ago in its so-called Clear Skies initiative. But that legislation has stalled with little indication of any movement. (snip/...)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/05/politics/main587076.shtml

It looks like CBS engaged in some creative writing in this article.
But on close examination, the business of trading pollution credits will allow some communities to continue to be engulfed with health destroying pollution.
There are enough studies that show the harmful effects of pollution, especially for children, that to allow a polluter to buy credits so they can legally cause harm is nothing less than child abuse.

Giving a child the gift of a life long illness is just one of the Bush legacies.

"Like Clear Skies, the new regulations would provide states and utilities with a pollution trading system in which plants unable to meet the required reductions could buy emission allowances from other plants that have exceeded the required cuts."

"The benefits will be very similar," Leavitt said in an interview Thursday, adding that the new rules also outline "many of the same strategies" as the Clear Skies initiative, which, he said, the administration nevertheless will continue to pursue.

Benefits? You Jebus this is right up there with "The safegueards worked" in reference to reversing course on the steel tariffs.

why the hell did he cancel the EPA enforcing the Clinton regulations?

If I remember correctly.

They overturned Clinton's regulations (from a 10 year study I think) immediately. Clear skies is so laden with gifts to big energy even goosestep Repubes didn't want to sign off on it as it would be very hard to sell come election time.

there were scientists saying that unlike tax cuts, global warming and other polluting, animal endangering actions cannot be reversed. They said (and I am not quoting because do not have the scientific vocabulary) that it could be 100 years before some semblance of balance could be restored...if ever. We have a brain dead idiot leading us to the brink at the worst possible time in history.

these folks are good at this.

Big polluters can "trade credits" with more rural smaller polluters, buy time and evade sanctions.

Think about it.....say I live in Houston, and local plants trade their pollution "deficit" to smaller, cleaner Gulf Coast plants hundreds of miles away.

Is Houston's air cleaner? Well, no, not technically.

accompanied such a negative article. Goes it alone? Yeah, like the schizophrenics who see Abe Lincoln in mirrors "go it alone." Jeez-us wept!

Let's play the suck up headline editor game:

Bush murders 90-year old grandmother of 18:

President Assists Family with Healthcare Costs, Boosts Undertaking Industry

Bush spits on Kennedy's Eternal Flame:

President Saves Energy in Small Ways Every Day


Go ahead, try it.

eom