Senate Committee Backs Power Plant Emissions Bill

By Cat Lazaroff

WASHINGTON, DC, June 28, 2002 (ENS) - Legislation to slash emissions of four pollutants - including the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide - from power plants narrowly passed a Senate committee on Thursday. The bill, authored by committee chair Senator Jim Jeffords, would require much deeper emissions cuts than proposals made by the Bush administration.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 10 to nine to send legislation drafted by its chair to the full Senate. Jeffords, a Vermont Independent, says the Clean Power Act (S 556) will "significantly reduce pollution from electric power plants."

Senator Jim Jeffords authored the Clean Power Act and shepherded the bill through the committee he chairs. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

The bill requires electric power plants to reduce their emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 83 percent, sulfur dioxide (SO2) by 83 percent, mercury by 90 percent and carbon dioxide (CO2) by 23 percent from today's levels. By 2008, all power plants - including many now exempted from existing Clean Air Act regulations - would have to meet nationwide pollutant caps.

The bill differs from President George W. Bush's Clear Skies Initiative on two major issues: requiring new pollution controls for older power plants and mandating reductions in CO2 emissions, an idea the White House has repeatedly opposed as too expensive.

Power plants produce two-thirds of total U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions, more than a quarter of the nation's nitrogen oxides, one third of the nation's mercury pollution, and about 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. (Two photos by Carole Swinehart, courtesy Michigan Sea Extension)

The bill will face a difficult fight before the full Senate. Thursday's vote split largely along party lines, with eight Democrats and one Republican - Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island - voting with Jeffords to pass the bill.

Eight Republicans and one Democrat - Montana's Max Baucus, whose state is one of the nation's biggest coal producers - opposed the bill. Baucus told Jeffords he could not "support a bill that is not workable," and warned that the mandatory cap on CO2 emissions would likely kill the bill on the Senate floor.

Electric generating power plants are the nation's single largest source of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for emitting six million tons of smog generating NOx, 13 million tons of acid rain producing SO2, more than two billion tons of CO2, and 52 tons of toxic mercury each year.

Many older power plants have been accused by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of illegally upgrading without installing pollution controls.

The legislation requires these older power plants to meet the new standards either on the power plant's 40th birthday, or by 2013, whichever is later.

Jeffords said the required reductions in NOx, SO2 and mercury could be achieved with technology that is already commercially available, while the means to cut CO2 emissions "is on the verge of commercial application."

Under the bill, power plants would be allowed to use market based mechanisms such as emissions trading to help meet emission reduction requirements. Plants could earn pollution allowances by making deeper emissions cuts than those required by law, and then sell or trade these allowances with other power plants.

Utilities would not be allowed to trade allowances with polluters from other industries, such as factories. An exception could be made in the future for CO2 allowances, if other polluters are also forced to meet CO2 caps - if, for example, the U.S. were to comply with the greenhouse gas reductions required by the Kyoto Protocol, an international climate change treaty which President Bush has rejected.

Pollution emitted from a coal burning power plant. (Photo courtesy National Renewable Energy Lab)

Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the nonprofit Clean Air Trust, called the Senate committee vote, " a resounding defeat for President Bush."

"His so called 'Clear Skies' plan has just been sent to the ash heap of history," O'Donnell said, predicting Senate approval for Jeffords' bill.

A variety of conservation and public interest groups have backed the bill, particularly applauding its steps toward reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

None of Ohio's coal burning power plants are currently required to meet the emissions standards of the 1970 Clean Air Act because they were planned or constructed prior to 1973. (Photo courtesy Ohio Environmental Council)

"EPA's recent global warming report makes it clear that carbon dioxide emissions are heating up the climate," added Martha Marks, president of REP America, the national grassroots organization of Republicans for environmental protection. "If we continue doing nothing about this problem, we're risking very serious consequences - more violent, destructive weather, water supply constraints, and greater sickness and death from stronger heat waves and summer smog episodes."

Air pollution is already a major health problem, noted the group Physicians For Social Responsibility in a letter sent to Senators Thursday morning. More than 1,300 doctors, nurses and health professionals endorsed the letter, calling power plants "the leading source of the harmful air pollution that is taking its toll on America's health."

"The Clean Power Act is the most effective way to protect public health from air pollution," said Dr. Robert Musil, executive director and CEO of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "We call on the President to support this plan that will require stringent cuts of these four pollutants."