If "Clear Skies" Fails, ChimpCo Will Cut Standards W. Administrative Rules

"With the fate of President Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal looking increasingly hazy on Capitol Hill, administration officials are preparing to make similar changes to air pollution rules for power plants, which are among the nation's biggest generators of smog, acid rain and mercury. For the third time in three weeks, Senate Republicans postponed a pivotal committee hearing Thursday on the White House-backed Clear Skies legislation, the most ambitious overhaul of the Clean Air Act in 15 years, because they lacked the votes to pass it.

But if Clear Skies stalls, Bush administration officials are poised to reshape power plant regulations through the rulemaking process this month in ways that mimic the legislation. In the offing are new limits on power plant emissions of mercury that have been widely criticized as too lenient. On the other hand, the administration's proposed changes include market-based incentives to reduce smog and acid rain — incentives supported by critics of Clear Skies.

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State air pollution regulators and some former EPA officials strongly disagree, arguing that the nation's air would be cleaned up faster if the Bush administration simply enforced existing rules instead of tinkering with them. The Clear Skies legislation would weaken regulations that are poised to force billions of dollars in pollution-control improvements at hundreds of aging coal-fired power plants over the next 20 years, they note. "In the world of illusion and magic tricks, there is a thing called the flash," said Bruce C. Buckheit, a former director of the EPA's air enforcement office who resigned two years ago. He said the real action in Clear Skies was the Clean Air Act changes, not the cuts to the three pollutants proposed in the bill.

Coal mining companies, labor unions and other supporters of Clear Skies mounted a fierce lobbying push this week in hopes of breaking a deadlock in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which had stalled the legislation. Senate Republicans pressured the lone GOP holdout, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, while the utility industry and other backers pressed Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, who represents a region with considerable coal reserves. Republicans even made last-minute changes to the bill, to give favorable status to a Montana coal mine in hopes of winning Baucus' support."

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-skies4mar04,1,9551.story?coll=la-news-a_section