eviscerating the clean air act

The Bush administration is about to change the rules of the Clean Air Act to allow thousands of older industrial plants to upgrade without having to install new air pollution equipment.

Current rules require installation of pollution control equipment whenever plant owners undertake anything more than "routine maintenance." The new rule will allow plant owners to spend as much as 20 percent of the cost of replacing production equipment before they have to install new controls.

Quoting Katherine Q. Seelye via Common Dreams:


The exemption would let industrial plants continue to emit hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere and could save the companies millions, if not billions, of dollars in pollution equipment costs, even if they increase the amounts of pollutants they emit.

The old rule has long been opposed by industry. This is just one more example of the White House changing the regulations to benefit its friends.

Posted by Bill Hopkins on August 23, 2003 10:17 AM
Comments

G-r-r-r-r-r. There goes my heart's abhorrence!

Posted by: Joel at August 24, 2003 02:38 AM

Thanks for linking to this travesty... one of many going on under the cover of politics right now. For shame! But I didn't vote for him. NOr did the majority of Americans. Small comfort, what!?

Posted by: fredf at August 25, 2003 12:38 PM