Frist seeks air quality answers

Frist seeks air quality answers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., met with EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday to learn more about how a Bush administration initiative would affect air pollution in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Bush has asked Congress to impose mandatory limits on industry production of three kinds of pollutants and to let companies work out how to achieve them through a system of earning and trading credits. The pollutants are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury. Congress has yet to consider the proposal.

After Thursday's meeting, Frist said the administration's so-called Clear Skies Initiative "shows promise, but we still need to closely examine the full impact of this proposal on the Smokies."

Environmentalists agree that more information is needed.

"We have been concerned that the detail associated with Clear Skies is lacking," said Stephen Smith, executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "Clear Skies is really just a framework and the details are just not there."

Smith said environmentalists had urged Frist, a former heart-lung surgeon, to take up the issue because air pollution can cause health problems.

"We were pleased to see that he has engaged in the issue and is asking the questions," Smith said.

Whitman told Frist that she would visit the Smokies to check out the air pollution problem firsthand. No date for her visit has been set.

Smith said a 75 percent reduction in the allowable emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal-fired plants is needed to improve the air quality in the national park.

Air pollution threatens more than 30 plant species in the park, a factor in its inclusion on the latest list of ten most endangered parks compiled by the National Parks Conservation Association. High ozone levels were recorded on 32 days in 2000 and 13 days through September of last year.