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WASHINGTON AP) Ñ The government proposed a pollution
standard for power plants Wednesday that critics said flouts the spirit of a
Supreme Court ruling on clean air enforcement. The proposal would make it easier for utilities to expand
plant operations or make other changes to produce more electricity without
installing new pollution controls. Critics said the Environmental Protection Agency was
ignoring the justices' ruling this month that said a lower court erred when
it sided with a coal-burning utility in seeking a similar standard. But the
EPA's assistant administrator, Bill Wehrum, said the proposal was not in
conflict with the recent decision. "It's
apples and oranges," Wehrum said in a telephone interview. "We
clearly have the authority" to issue the new standard, he added, which
revises one proposed a year and a half ago. The proposal
would allow the use of average hourly smokestack emissions when determining
whether a plant's expansion or efficiency improvements require additional
pollution controls. The EPA hopes to make the proposal final before year's
end. Opponents of
the hourly standard recently argued before the Supreme Court that this
standard lets a plant put more smog-causing chemicals and other pollution
into the air, even if hourly releases do not increase. Environmentalists
long have contended the EPA should continue using annual emissions to
determine whether new pollution controls are needed under the Clean Air Act. While not
ruling directly on the legality of hourly standard, the Supreme Court said a
lower court erred when it sided with Duke Energy Co. in the utility's
challenge to the use of the annual standard in an enforcement case. Duke Energy
argued for the use of an hourly standard Ñ similar to the one the EPA is
proposing. "EPA is
ignoring both the Supreme Court and basic science," said Vickie Patton,
a lawyer for Environmental Defense, the winning party in the Duke Energy
case. Frank
O'Donnell, president of the nonprofit Clean Air Watch, accused the EPA of
"thumbing its nose at the court" by pressing ahead with the hourly
emissions standard. Wehrum said
the proposal is intended to allow power plants to produce more electricity by
eliminating regulatory barriers to efficiency. He said the EPA has examined
the environmental impact of the proposed rule and determined
"essentially there's no effect on the environment." "There
should be little if any effects on the level of environmental protection
provided by this program," he said. Duke Energy
and other power companies have said the EPA, beginning during the Clinton
administration, interpreted the Clean Air Act in such a way that it has
stifled needed expansions and efficiency improvements. Environmentalists
say any major changes in a plant's operation should be accompanied by steps
to capture the additional pollution that may result. |