Carbon Debate Clouds Future for Bush Air Pollution Bill

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, January 27, 2005 (ENS) - A hot debate over global warming could derail the effort to enact the Bush administration's plan to cut air pollution from coal-fired power plants, Senate Republicans said Wednesday.

A bill that includes mandatory cuts of carbon emissions "will not pass the Senate, it will not pass the House and the President will not sign it," said Senator Kit Bond, a Missouri Republican. "It is a poison pill that will kill this bill."

The latest legislative version of the Bush "Clear Skies" plan sets new limits for emissions of the toxic metal mercury as well as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) - key components of particulate matter and smog.

These emissions cause some 25,000 premature deaths each year, according to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as more than 35,000 heart attacks and the half a million asthma attacks.

There is broad consensus that a multipollutant bill is the best path towards cutting these emissions, but most Democrats and a handful of Republicans believe carbon cuts should be part of the equation.

"We need to address global warming," said Senator Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat. "Most tough issues around here you need a lot more than 50 votes - you need 60. It is hard to imagine how we get there without doing something on carbon."

U.S. coal-fired power plants are a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2), the leading greenhouse gas contributor to global warming. These power plants account for 40 percent of the U.S. total and 10 percent of global carbon emissions.

The Bush administration has moved to ease clean air rules for the nation's oldest and dirtiest power plants. (Photo courtesy NASA)

"If it is part of this legislation, then it is going nowhere," said Ohio Republican George Voinovich, cosponsor of the bill. "If the game is four emissions or nothing, it is nothing."

The hearing Wednesday illustrated the lingering controversy that surrounds the Bush administration's air pollution plan.

The proposal represents a major revision of federal clean air law - it would shift regulation for coal-fired power plants to a cap and trade system.

Proponents say it will cut emissions of SO2, NOx and mercury some 70 percent by 2018 and will provide industry with regulatory certainty that can make such reductions affordable.

"Clear Skies will be the most aggressive clean air proposal ever enacted," Voinovich told colleagues. "It is needed to harmonize our environmental policy with economic needs. It will keep our energy prices stable and jobs in America."

Voinovich said the plan ensures a long future for coal in the United States and will not cause electricity price increases that could occur under regulations laid out by the Clean Air Act.

The nation's 1,176 coal-fired power plants generate more than half the nation's electricity - and the United States has a massive supply of the fossil fuel.

Industry groups say the current regulatory regime will boost their prices to such an extent that some will be forced to switch to natural gas.

"A scrubber costs $230 million - you don't put that on overnight," said Ron Harper, CEO of Basin Electric Power Cooperative in North Dakota, a regional wholesale electric generation and transmission cooperative. "This bill will provide reductions greater than under the current law and will provide them sooner."

Ohio Republican George Voinovich is chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and Nuclear Safety. (Photo courtesy Senator's Office)

"It is important that government not be the lapdog for industry," Carper said. "If we establish the right targets and timelines, American ingenuity will meet the challenge, clean technologies will come to market and create new jobs, and emissions will be reduced."

Conrad Schneider of the Clean Air Task Force told the subcommittee the bill is a "Trojan horse for a broad dismantling of the Clean Air Act."

The view that Clear Skies would reduce litigation is unfounded, Schneider said, because the bill contains some 27 provisions that could be challenged in court.

Critics of the proposal say it repeals deadlines for state compliance with federal air standards, prohibits downwind states from pursuing any pollution reductions from power plants in upwind states and adds loopholes for older power plants to ignore mandated technology upgrades currently in place.

Some 75 percent of coal-fired boilers are more than 30 years old and do not have modern pollution controls.

John Paul, an Ohio regional air pollution official speaking on behalf of the trade association for state and regional air pollution controllers, said enforcing the existing Clean Air Act is preferable to the Bush plan.

"We cannot support this proposal," Paul told the panel. "It fails on every one of our association's core principles."

Paul noted that last week the National Research Council also determined existing law would likely force more comprehensive and quicker emission cuts.

The interim report from the independent committee cautioned that some individual plants would allowed higher emissions under the Bush plan than strict enforcement of the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program.

Voinovich said the committee has been wrestling with clean air legislation for six years and warned colleagues, industry representatives and environmentalists that his patience is wearing thin.

"If we can't come up with some kind of compromise, as chairman of this committee, I can tell you it is over and you will all have to fend for yourselves," Voinovich said.