Bush Pushes Stalled Pollution Proposal

President Bush tried Tuesday to jump-start his stalled air pollution proposal -- the Clear Skies initiative -- by gathering industry officials and politicians at the White House and arguing that his bill would help the struggling economy.

“People in this country must understand that we can have a pro-growth agenda, a pro-job agenda and a pro-environmental agenda at the same time, and Clear Skies legislation is just that,” Bush said in the White House East Garden.

Bush has spent two days this week pushing his air pollution policies, including the Clear Skies initiative, which is opposed by most environmental groups and supported by the energy industry and the coal-fired power plants.

“The companies who would like to see Clear Skies passed have been talking to the White House for months,” said Paul Bailey of Generators for Clean Air, a group of utilities that support the president’s proposal. “If they wait until next year, it gets close to elections, and politics will prevent passage.”

However, Bailey acknowledged Clear Skies has little hope of passage this year. The Republican-controlled Senate is divided about how aggressively they want to cut emissions, and Clear Skies faces competition in the Senate from two other proposals.

Bush’s initiative would set up a nationwide “cap and trade” system similar to the one already in place in the Northeast to address the problem of acid rain. The program would issue pollution “permits” to utilities and allow them to trade emission rights among themselves to reach long-term pollution reduction targets.

“Every year, each facility will need a permit of each ton of pollution it emits,” Bush explained in his remarks. “Plants that can reduce their pollution below that amount are allowed to sell the surplus to other plants that need more time.”

Environmentalists don’t object to the idea of “cap and trade,” but complain that Clear Skies effectively pushes into the future pollution reductions that the existing Clean Air Act requires sooner. It also focuses on three utility emissions -- sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury -- but doesn’t address carbon dioxide, which is widely blamed for global warming.

“Even though it would be a reduction, it is significantly less than the Clean Air Act would require over time,” said the National Audubon Society’s Bob Perciasepe, former EPA assistant administrator for air during the Clinton administration. “And it doesn’t do anything about carbon dioxide.”

In recent days, Bush has sought to promote his air pollution proposals by linking them to job creation. He has argued that environmental concerns should not override the need to create new jobs.

“One way to make sure that the job supply is steady and growing in the long term is to have a realistic energy policy, coupled with realistic environmental policy,” Bush said.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), sponsor of one of the alternate plans, argued that more stringent environmental legislation would create more jobs, not threaten them.

“Under our bill, the installation of new pollution control equipment on existing power plants mixed with the construction of new, advanced-technology plants will create tens of thousands of new high-paying jobs,” Carper said. “Our bill also encourages the development of new clean-coal technology, which should help retain coal’s place in our fuel supply and continue to guarantee jobs for our nation’s coal miners.”

Bush did not specify why he believes his proposal would create jobs. However, the National Assn. of Manufacturers, which took part in the White House event, said that the president’s plan would keep energy prices lower, and thus boost economic growth.

“America’s manufacturing sector has lost more than 2.7 million jobs in the past 37 months,” said Jeffrey Marks, the association’s air quality director. “And the air quality bills now competing with Clear Skies for congressional support would only hinder economic expansion by driving energy and natural gas prices higher for businesses and homeowners alike.”

At the White House, Bush highlighted the participation of Jerry Roberts, treasurer of Local 233 of the Utility Workers of America, an AFL-CIO affiliate in Monroe, Mich. While unions are a traditional ally to Democrats, the president has frequently reached out to union members as part of a strategy to broaden the Republican Party’s appeal to blue-collar workers.

“What we’re talking about is good for the working people of this country,” Bush said. “What we’re talking about makes sense for those who work for a living.”

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Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren and Associated Press contributed to this report.