Bush submits 'Clear Skies' measure

Bush submits 'Clear Skies' measure

STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

President Bush said Monday his plan to cut pollution from power plants is "a market-based system that guarantees results" and has finally been introduced in Congress, five months after he first proposed it.

Bush envisions his plan producing dramatic health and environmental benefits nationwide if adopted. But since it was outlined in mid-February, Democrats in Congress and environmentalists have been portraying it as a major threat to clean air.

"In the next decade alone, 'Clear Skies' will eliminate 35 million more tons of pollution than the current Clean Air Act, bringing cleaner air to millions of Americans," Bush said in a statement Monday. "And 'Clear Skies' will do this through the use of a market-based system that guarantees results while keeping electricity prices affordable for the American people."

His proposal would establish caps on emissions from power plants of two major sources of dirty air — smog-causing nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain — as well as the first controls on their releases of mercury. Utilities would be able to buy credits from other utilities if they fail to meet the cap.

In the Southeast, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman estimates that sulfur dioxide emissions will be cut by 77 percent, nitrogen oxide emissions will be lowered by 80 percent and mercury emissions will be cut 77 percent.

The Tennessee Valley Authority would be required to reduce most of its existing emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides from its 59 coal units under the president's plan.

Critics say the plan ign~r~s the ability of some of the dirtiest power plants to avoid emission reductions by buying credits.

"The clean air proposal is not enough to clean the air of the Tennessee Valley, especially for the Great Smoky Mountains," said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Dr. Smith and other environmentalists are pushing an alternative proposal by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Jeffords to reduce sulfur and nitrogen oxides even more than the president's plan and would try to regulate heat-trapping carbon dioxide linked to global warming.

"This (Bush proposal) would be an attempt to undermine enforcement and substitute an industry-friendly emission trading scheme, which we think would actually encourage corporate responsibility and be a giant step backward in air pollution control," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental group.

The Bush administration plan is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., and in the House by Reps. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and Joe Barton, R-Texas.

EPA claims the plan can prevent 12,000 premature deaths and tens of thousands of respiratory illnesses a year by 2020, while cutting pollution from power plants by 70 percent.

But Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., said Monday the administration is "ignoring its own warnings on the devastating effects of global warming" by not addressing carbon dioxide in its plan.

Margaret Camp, a spokeswoman for U.S. Sen. Bil Frist, R-Tenn., said the senator hadn't seen the legislation yet and "looks forward to reviewing" the bill.