Retain Plant Pollution Rule

Thirty-three years ago, Congress and the power industry made a deal: Legislators would exempt old plants from the tougher anti-pollution standards applied to new plants. In return, companies promised that if they wanted to expand the old plants, they would add modern anti-pollution controls.

The pact, enacted in 1977 as the “new source review” provision of the Clean Air Act, has generally served the nation well, keeping the U.S. on track in its near-heroic efforts to turn the sky above places like Southern California from lung-clogging brown to breathable blue. Now the Bush administration is attempting to eviscerate the provision, and it’s up to legislators to keep the Clean Air Act strong.

Stones began flying over the air issue on Nov. 22, 2002, when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman announced her intention to make two changes in the rules governing plant expansion.

The first, initially proposed by the Clinton administration in the late 1990s, would revise a provision that triggers sanctions against a power plant when it -- don’t miss the irony -- installs a device that makes its emissions go down. Hooray to Whitman for pushing to get rid of that Catch-22.

Her second proposed revision, however, would let plants use rhetorical ruses to slink past environmental restrictions. Plants would be able to avoid installing pollution reduction technologies, for instance, by saying they were “upgrading” facilities, rather than “expanding” or “modernizing” them.

The debate essentially pits power industry operators and their GOP allies against environmentalists and Democrats. The former tend to see the EPA as a “Gestapo” agency -- to quote James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment Committee -- that only gets in the way of the free-market solutions that will eventually clear the air. The latter alliance just doesn’t trust plants to reduce pollution unless strict rules force them to do so.

As they fight to keep the Clean Air Act strong, legislators should reject the glib demonization of the Bush administration as environmental raptor by Democrats who just happen to be running for president. But they should also reject the administration’s equally glib contention that industry can be trusted to do the right thing.

The free market may one day spark the sort of dramatic environmental advances that Whitman predicts. But so far there’s no evidence that fewer rules will lead to better breathing.

Until such proof emerges, Congress and the American people should demand that companies that want to expand their plants equip them with the best available equipment to contain whatever filth they would otherwise spew across the sky.