Top Air Polluters Cozy With Bush Administration

by J.R. Pegg

(ENS) WASHINGTON -- Faced with federal requirements to reduce harmful air emissions, the owners of the nation's dirtiest power plants poured millions of dollars into the Bush presidential campaigns and the Republican National Committee (RNC) and in turn received an unprecedented rollback of federal clean air laws, according to a new report released Wednesday by public interest groups.

The report tells a "classic Washington 'follow the money' story," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, which compiled the analysis with the Environmental Integrity Project.

The two organizations identified the top 50 polluters by their emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), mercury and carbon dioxide (CO2). They found the majority of the 89 plants on the three lists are owned by the 30 biggest utility companies.

These 89 power plants represent only about five percent of the more than 1,000 such facilities in the United States, but pump out 43 percent of the industry's SO2, 31 percent of its CO2 and 43 percent of its mercury pollution.

The report details that the 30 biggest utility companies and their trade association have given $6.6 million to Bush campaigns and the RNC since 1999.

The financial support was part of a concerted effort to block enforcement actions brought by the Clinton administration, primarily under the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program, Clemente says.

"It is no coincidence that a wholesale assault on the Clean Air Act is taking place today," added Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project and a former top enforcement official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The report notes that power plant industry executives and lobbyists played key roles on several Bush transition teams, with some given key positions at the EPA and the Department of Energy.

Of the 89 plants that made it onto one or more of the dirtiest plant lists, 47 -- well over half -- either have been sued or placed under investigation by EPA for violating the New Source Review requirement.

Since taking office the Bush administration has finalized several major changes to the New Source Review program, which is designed to ensure the nation's dirtiest power plants do not expand operations without installing new, and expensive, pollution control technology.

Rule changes finalized in August 2003 exempted many facilities from the law's permit and pollution control requirements, but have been stayed by a federal court.

Critics, including state and local pollution control officials, believe the rule changes add a mass of uncertainty to the New Source Review program -- the exact opposite of what the administration and industry say is needed.

Schaeffer says the administration's actions and policies have undermined enforcement efforts and thrown the New Source Review program into further chaos.

"This attack is part of a campaign by a White House that understands what the industry wants and is willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen," said Schaeffer, who resigned from the EPA in 2002 in protest of the Bush administration's air pollution policies.

He notes that one the largest polluters -- the W.H. Sammis plant in Ohio currently in court for alleged violations of the program -- increased its S02 emissions by 19,000 tons from 2002 to 2003.

"That is a stunning statement of arrogance and disrespect for the judicial process," said Schaeffer. "It is a sign they are expecting to be bailed out."

Administration officials and industry groups counter that the New Source Review changes will enhance the affordability, reliability and safety of the nation's electric supply while ensuring efforts to continue improving air quality.

They contend that prior to the revisions, many facilities were deterred from performing important repairs for fear they would trigger New Source Review, thereby impeding efficiencies that could benefit consumers and the environment.

Scott Segal of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council says the new report is politically driven.

"For some years, it has been widely reported that Public Citizen receives inordinate amounts of money from trial lawyers," Segal wrote in a statement. "It is no small wonder, then, that the organization prefers conventional litigation-heavy approaches to innovative market-sensitive ones."

Both Public Citizen and the Environmental Integrity Project say they are nonpartisan and contend it is industry groups and the Bush administration that are playing politics.

Presidents undoubtedly align themselves with their supporters, Schaeffer said, but "the question is whether these guys have pushed it to a new extreme and we think they have."