Sen. Frist commended for clean air effort

Sen. Frist commended
for clean air effort

Dear Editor:
With air pollution on the rise in Tennessee, Senator Frist should be commended for bringing EPA Chief Administrator Christine Whitman to <u>Great Smoky Mountains National Park</u> to witness the air quality problems first hand.

Moreover, we applaud his cautious approach toward Bush's Clear Skies Initiative, which will likely not reduce the dangerous pollution from <u>coal-fired power</u> plants across the region enough to remove the haze obscuring the view of our crown jewel's beautiful vistas from high atop Clingman's Dome.

Visibility in the park is often reduced from 100 miles on a clear day to less than 15 miles from power plant pollution. While Senator Frist stood at one of the highest peaks among the dead trees eagerly listening to Ms. Whitman proclaim that President Bush's Clear Skies plan would reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants by 70 percent (a plan that would not be in full effect until 2018), he has turned a deaf ear to the science showing that 1,440 lives in Tennessee alone are shortened annually from power plant particulate matter.

EPA touts that Clear Skies will avoid 4,000 deaths in the Southeast region, while a bill that recently passed out of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works would reduce the mortality figures by 6,336 annually — and would start doing this 10 years sooner. An analysis from Bush's own EPA also shows that Clear Skies would not clean the acid-plagued streams of the mountains enough to return them to natural conditions. Worse yet, the Bush plan includes full rollback of current Clean Air Act Laws that if enforced, could reduce over 50 percent of the dirty pollution troubling the air in the Smoky Mountains.

Senator Frist has options and choices on what to accept as good legislative policy to reduce power plant pollution, and the plan of the Bush Administration is a gift to the utility polluters, rather than a breath of clean air for the people of Tennessee. Right now, the air in the Smoky Mountains is often more dangerous to breathe than the air of a major urban area like Atlanta - Senator Thompson said so himself.

Senator Frist is right not to endorse the Clear Skies initiative, which is an administrative effort to lean clean air standards in favor of industry over public health and the environment. His support of a stronger clean-up bill could potentially save 2,336 more lives annually in the Southeast than Bush's plan.

A "thanks" is in order to Senator Frist for bringing Whitman to the park, as well as encouragement for him to continue to not endorse the Bush Plan. Senator Frist needs to listen to the pleas of his constituents who want clean, healthy air for their children and grandchildren and not endorse a plan that doesn't get us there.

Thank you,

Liz Albertson
Southern Alliance for
Clean Energy
117 South Gay St.
Knoxville, TN 37902