New air came in over the weekend, and it’s hard to remember how dreadful, weather-wise, Thursday and Friday were last week.

Just as a reminder, it was hot, humid, sticky and hazy. Ground-level ozone, or smog, conspired with the elements to make it unhealthy to be outside on Friday. It was brutal.

On that same day, when the air was so bad, the New York Times reported on draft regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency concerning older power plants and oil refineries. With a tip of the hat to polluting industries, the new rule would exempt thousands of facilities from part of the Clean Air Act.

The exemption could save these companies millions of dollars. Those savings are passed directly onto us, as the pollution spewed from their smokestack flows into Maine and degrades our air and water. It forces people sensitive to bad air to stay inside and inflames respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Even the healthiest person can be affected.

The new rule could be signed as soon as this week, and go into effect without any further public notice or comment. Essentially, the rule allows plant owners to subvert the intent of the Clean Air Act, specifically a section that requires the owners of older facilities to invest in equipment to reduce pollution when they are modernized or upgraded.

New source review was enacted in 1977 and requires the owners of older plants to install pollution controls when they make emission-increasing upgrades. Many plants were initially exempted from the rule. Lawmakers intended that as these antiquated facilities were replaced with new or modernized equipment, pollution-control devices, as required by the law, would be installed. Instead, the industries have kept inefficient, pollution-belching plants on life support while launching an all-out effort to undo the law.

Changing the modernization rules will pull the teeth from the Clean Air Act, tie the hands of states struggling with pollution control and provide a windfall to some of the country’s largest industrial polluters.

“This makes it patently clear that the Bush administration has meant all along to repeal the Clean Air Act by administrative fiat,” Eliot Spitzer, the attorney general of New York, told the Times.

Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt is President Bush’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency. By pushing through these changes before his confirmation, the agency puts Leavitt in a difficult position. He will be called to answer for these rules when he goes before the Senate, probably next week. He will either have to buck his new boss, his own air experts from Utah or duck the questions altogether.

The EPA has much to answer for. We should not allow this attack on the environment and the very air we breathe to go unchallenged.


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