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-- EPA Exempts Plants from Clean-air Rules

EPA Exempts Plants from Clean-air Rules

AP News Report


Moving backwards at the speed of fun.

I understand that these plants are businesses and must make money to continue operation, employ workers, upgrade systems, create power to avoid blackouts....but is this the way to do it?



There has to be a better way, or better sounding way, no?

Once again, BUSH easing companies on the "pollution" side. For real, this guy sees everything from the easy way out, there IS other ways, he just gives TWO craps about environment!! ...

Heres the article for the "lazy link clickers" article..

quote:

WASHINGTON (Aug. 27) - The Bush administration on Wednesday made it easier for thousands of older power plants, refineries and factories to avoid having to install costly clean air controls when they replace aging equipment. In a major revision to its air pollution rules, the Environmental Protection Agency will allow up to 20 percent of the costs of replacing each plant's production system to be considered ``routine maintenance'' not requiring expensive anti-pollution controls, according to agency documents and interviews with EPA officials. The new rule signed Wednesday by the EPA's acting administrator, Marianne L. Horinko, could be applied to about 17,000 facilities nationwide and culminates decades of debate over a controversial Clean Air Act program. Electric utilities and oil companies have been urging the White House to revise the program, saying the costs prohibit them from making energy-efficiency improvements. The change represents a fundamental shift away from a long-problematic 1971 maintenance standard. ``We're going to really, I think, create certainty going forward for industrial facilities, by spelling out what specific replacement is exempt,'' Horinko told The Associated Press. Environmentalists say the exemption will allow power plants in the Midwest and South to continue emitting millions of tons of pollutants that cause health problems for people living downwind, particularly in the Northeast. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer immediately threatened to sue the Bush administration in an effort he said would include other states. Spitzer and other attorneys general have already filed suits challenging earlier changes the administration made to the program. ``If allowed to stand, this flagrantly illegal rule will ensure that, under the watch of the Bush administration, Americans will breathe dirtier air, contract more respiratory disease and suffer more environmental degradation caused by air pollution,'' said Spitzer, a Democrat. Jeff Holmstead, the EPA's assistant administrator in charge of air quality, said the rule was meant to let a plant replace a piece of equipment with something identical or functionally equivalent, as long as the plant remains within its pollution permit limits and the basic operating design remains the same. ``We can say categorically that pollution will not increase as a result of this rule,'' he said. Congress put the Clean Air Act's ``new source review'' program into law in 1977. The agency has had mixed success in enforcing the maintenance provision. Until now, operators have been required to add more pollution-cutting devices if they do anything more than ``routine maintenance'' on a plant and cause emissions to increase significantly. The White House-led reworking of the maintenance standard essentially allows industries - including manufacturers, chemical plants and pulp and paper mills - to modernize one-fifth of a facility's essential production systems at a time. They can do so even if the upgrades increase emissions, and with no apparent restrictions on time intervals between modernization. Horinko, Holmstead and other top EPA officials said the plants still must comply with overall pollution permit limits and other state and federal programs for pollutants. Environmentalists and health advocates, however, said emissions could increase and still be within the plant's permitted limits. They described the new changes as disastrous for people's health and said the EPA ignored concerns expressed by hundreds of thousands of Americans opposed to the new regulations. ``EPA is throwing in the towel to industry just as its own enforcement of the existing rules has proven successful in the courts,'' said John Kirkwood, president of the American Lung Association. ``EPA policy should be based on protecting public health, not bolstering industry profits.'' During the Clinton administration, the federal government began suing 51 aging power plants and succeeded in forcing several to install hundreds of millions of dollars of pollution-control equipment. Just this month, the first ruling against a utility in those cases came from a federal judge in Ohio who said Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. violated the law when it upgraded seven coal-fired power plants in the name of routine maintenance without installing anti-pollution equipment. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new rule actually makes it easier for companies to invest in state-of-the-art pollution controls and to make upgrades and repairs that will ``ensure greater electricity reliability.'' Scott Segal, a lobbyist and attorney for six large utilities, said the efficiency gains from plant upgrades will benefit the environment. ``Over the last two decades, emissions from the power sector have significantly declined. That trend will continue,'' he said. 08/27/03 19:31 EDT Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Bah I need to find that article...I think it was in the Chicago Tribune yesterday. It talked about how the GAO concluded that the EPA had no grounds to do such a thing because the only "evidence" they used in coming up with the conclusion that slackening regulations would lead to cleaner air was "anecdotal evidence" from the corporations effected.

The environmental policies of this administration are reprehensible. They delete pages from EPA reports that mention global warming's existence because the stated policy is that global warming is not real.

Oh well....

MrS

I took this from another site (I hope some of you recognize where) because I don't think there is a way to say it any clearer.

quote:

BUSH'S NEW EPA REGULATIONS You will hear much over the next few days about some new rules that are being adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA says that these new rules will make it easier for power plants to increase their efficiency without increasing pollution, the environmental activists say it just ain't so. OK, here's what's going on. The EPA will allow power generators to spend money to increase the efficiency of a generating plant without having to add new pollution controls. The owner of a power plant will be allowed to spend up to 20% of the cost of replacing a generating unit without spending extra money to cut back pollution levels. Let me give you a way to look at these new rules that you won't get from the mainstream media, and you certainly won't get from the anti-capitalist environmental radicals. Well use an example of a power plant that generates 1000 megawatts of power. To make the math easier to understand we'll just say that this plant generates 1000 megawatts of power by burning 1000 pounds of coal. I have no real idea how much coal it takes to create a megawatt of power ... we'll just use this one pound per megawatt to make a point here. Let's say that the operators of our fictional plant have the opportunity to increase the efficiency of the generator. By making a few equipment changes they can generate 1,500 megawatts of electricity. To produce that 1,500 megawatts the plant would have to burn 1,100 pounds of coal. The environmentalists correctly point out that this plant is going to be putting more pollution into the air; that extra pollution from that extra 100 pounds of coal. If you punch at your calculator for a few moments you will see that this plant will only be burning a bit less than three-fourths of a pound of coal for each megawatt of electricity. The end result is an increase in electricity production, which we undoubtedly need, coupled with a decrease in the rate of pollution per megawatt hour. Under the old Clinton-era EPA rules the electric generating plant would not be allowed to increase its efficiency without spending millions to add more pollution controls. More often than not this simply meant that the plant would not be modernized and we would go without the extra generating power. Also ... bear this in mind. At the present time there are limits on the amount of pollution that any particular electricity generating plant can put into the air. Most plants are not operating at that limit. Under the new EPA rules those current limits will not be increased. This means that even though a plant will be allowed to increase it's generating capacity through modernization without adding any additional pollution controls, it still will not be permitted to exceed its current pollution limits. These facts probably make you wonder just why the environmental radicals are raising so much hell over these new rules. It's easy to understand if you just remember what their true goal is. Many of these people are far more concerned with showing down the American capitalist machine than they are the quality of the air we breathe.

Don't believe the hype!

Could it have been FOX news?!?!

On the "Osgood Files" this morning (CBS radio, I listen to news radio for the traffic reports every 10 minutes ) Dave Ross made a funny commentary on the issue. He said that he thought they should pass a second law along with the loosening of the regulations that forced all power company executives to live 2 miles downwind of their power plants, thusly if there were an air quality problem you can be sure that it would be fixed right away.

I found it kind of entertaining. Of course almost ANYTHING is more entertaining than morning rush hour traffic in Chicago.

MrS

quote:

Originally posted by LiquidX Could it have been FOX news?!?!

Well the relaxation of the upgrade laws make sense from a practical standpoint but it's a shame that the ideal pollution level is not achieved. Currentely, power plants are operating under terribly inefficient and polluting conditions because the cost of performing any upgrade, would compel the power plant to spend a hell of a crap load of money to fully comply with the clean air act. Therefore most companies keep the aged old 50's technology around. By increasing a plant's efficiency a plant will theoretically produce less pollution. So it makes sense practically to allow the plant to upgrade. However, it's still retarded because it's essentially providing a loophole for companies to escape the provisions of the clean air act. What SHOULD have been done would be to acheive some sort of compromise between the extremist environmentalists and the energy industry. The power plants should be allowed to upgrade, however, a portion of the earnings saved on both the industry and consumer side of things should be taxed whereby the proceeds go towards the cost of upgrading the plant environmentally. Either that, or stipulate that if a plant makes a 20% upgrade, It must make a 20% upgrade in polluting levels. So in conclusion, I think that the ruling is better than the status quo however, it could have been much better.

I think government needs to get the energy sector back in its ownership. Then screw all the old powerplants and install new clean nuclear power plants and that's it for the pollution problem.

quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 I think government needs to get the energy sector back in its ownership.

:::shudders:::



I missed the part in the constitution that granted the government the right to own the energy I use too...

quote:

Originally posted by DrUg_Tit0 I think government needs to get the energy sector back in its ownership. Then screw all the old powerplants and install new clean nuclear power plants and that's it for the pollution problem.

In the United States the government NEVER owned the power production and distribution systems. But it was very tightly regulated by the government for many years.

With the exception of many municipal water systems; the Amtrak passenger rail system; and the Postal Service the US government has not been in the business of ownership of industries. Unlike most of the world there has never been even partial state ownership of the telephone system or a "national" airline.

Many "conservatives" would say it is "Un-American" to have any form of socialization of industry.

MrS

quote:

Originally posted by MrSquirrel With the exception of many municipal water systems; the Amtrak passenger rail system; and the Postal Service the US government has not been in the business of ownership of industries. Unlike most of the world there has never been even partial state ownership of the telephone system or a "national" airline. Many "conservatives" would say it is "Un-American" to have any form of socialization of industry. MrS

Which is as it should be . With the exception of specific externalities and market failures, there is nothing more efficient than free markets. I wasted 4 years in school to learn that simple fact. The only role of the government is to ensure that externalities are resolved and markets get as close to perfect competition as they can get.

quote:

Originally posted by occrider Which is as it should be . With the exception of specific externalities and market failures, there is nothing more efficient than free markets. I wasted 4 years in school to learn that simple fact. The only role of the government is to ensure that externalities are resolved and markets get as close to perfect competition as they can get.

While I agree that a free market ecnomy is ideally the most efficient system, I am always disturbed by the lack of efficiency in our system. I guess the government is just not doing their job to ensure your "externalities" get resolved.

I am not all that well read up on economics as you....I did take an econ class in college. Of course, I figured out real fast that Fred Gottheil's class could be easily passed if you just looked at every question as "do you want fish or steak?". He for some reason always made examples in class using "fish for five dollars" or "steak for twenty dollars". The concept worked for me, I stopped atending the lecture 2 weeks into the semester and still got B's on my exams...ahhh if only that trick had worked for calculus.

MrS

dunno

Everyone hook up in a organization that will help stop this shit. The more people as one the better.

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