Rescuing the Clean Air Act

Wall St. Journal ^ | June 20, 2002 | Editorial

[The Raven]

Tom Daschle is disappointed, radical environmentalists are furious, and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is suing -- all of which means the Bush Administration must be doing something right.

Indeed it is. Last week the Environmental Protection Agency announced new rules regarding the enforcement of the Clean Air Act. "Our review clearly established that some aspects of the . . . program have deterred companies from implementing projects that would increase energy efficiency and decrease pollution," said EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. This includes cases like that of Detroit Edison, which got hauled into court by the EPA for installing more efficient and less polluting turbines.

[The Raven]

...until the Clinton Administration got mad that utilities weren't reducing emissions beyond what the regulations required

A strange artifact of the "New Source Review" law is that it has no effect on emissions!!

Why? Because the nation has a "bubble" or cap on SO2 emissions. If an old plant installs new pollution equipment, the emissions at that plant go down, however the other utilities in the nation can each emit a small amount more and the net effect is zero decrease. The Clinton administration did an end around on this fact by sueing the utilities not only for NSR but to surrender their 'allowances' to emit. [new law!]

[dead]

Yet while the policy will be more rational going forward, the bad news is that the Administration has no plans to drop lawsuits brought during the Clinton Administration based on its bizarre interpretation of the rules. In other words, at the same time Ms. Whitman declared the Clinton interpretation of the New Source Review wrong, she promised to "vigorously" pursue current lawsuits based on that reading of the rule. The schizophrenic policy appears to be a ham-handed attempt to blunt criticism from Democrats and environmentalists, who now are accusing the Administration of "weakening" the Clean Air Act.

More focus group and polling inspired fence straddling from this administration.

[The Raven]

Here's an interesting idea