Clear Skies Initiative Clouds the Issue

By Kari Lydersen, AlterNet. Posted September 17, 2003.

During a visit to the Detroit Edison coal-burning power plant in Detroit on Sept. 15, President Bush tried to make it sound like his new energy policies would be the savior of both the economy and the environment.

But as he has done with the Healthy Forests Initiative and the No Child Left Behind Act, critics recognize his classic doublespeak for what it is, and point out that the proposed Clear Skies Initiative and the recently enacted changes to the New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act really represent a serious threat to air quality and public health.

The Detroit Edison plant in the town of Monroe, about 20 miles from Detroit, is one of the three largest coal-burning power plants in the country. It is also one of the antiquated but still in-use plants that are known as the country's worst polluters. Built before the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, these plants were grand-fathered in and have never had to meet the emissions standards laid out in the act. The thinking at the time was that they wouldn't be operating much longer. But here it is 26 years later, and plants like this are still chugging along all over the country.

"Nobody thought they'd last this long, but they're still here," said Ken Rosenman, a physician and professor of medicine at Michigan State University who has studied the effects of the Detroit Edison plant.

The pollution these plants create has been linked in numerous studies to increased premature deaths and cases of asthma and cancer. Studies using methods approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have blamed the Detroit Edison plant for 293 premature deaths and 5,740 asthma attacks per year, according to the group Clear the Air. Likewise two old coal-burning plants in Chicago, the Fisk and Crawford plants run by the company Midwest Generation and producing electricity for Com-Ed, were held responsible for 41 premature deaths, 550 emergency room visits and 2,800 asthma attacks in a 2001 study by the Harvard School of Public Health. Numerous out-dated plants in other states cause similar problems.

The Clean Air Act does include a provision, New Source Review, which stipulates that when major repairs or expansions are made to the plants, they must upgrade their equipment to meet modern emission controls. Power plants have long been trying to find loopholes in this provision, however, often passing major repairs and expansions off as standard maintenance. But then the Bush administration made changes which took effect in late August essentially gutting New Source Review and letting these antiquated power plants off the hook for eternity.

"It makes sense to change the regulations," Bush told the crowd in Monroe. "The rules put up too many hurdles. And that hurt the working people. We trust the people in this plant to make the right decision."

Following a common Bush administration theme, he implied that regulating the industry would result in plant closures and job losses. Especially in an area like Detroit which has seen industry after industry close its doors, this message probably hit home with many people.

"When we talk about environmental policy in this Bush administration, we not only talk about clean air, we talk about jobs," he said.

Angela Ledford, director of Clear the Air, said that based on Department of Energy and EPA data, a coalition called the Clean Air Task Force estimates that the new loopholes in New Source Review will mean at least 20,000 additional premature deaths per year and at least 12,000 additional cases of chronic bronchitis around the country.

"The Administration is once again doing the bidding of the coal and energy industries, at the expense of public health and the environment," she said in a statement.

The rollbacks in the New Source Review came just as some utility companies were being ordered by the courts to get up to par.

"It's ironic that at the same time the EPA was winning cases against some of these companies, Bush is weakening the regulations," said Rosenman. "It's like an end run by the utility companies to get around having judges enforce the laws."

Power industry executives have often claimed that bringing old coal-burning plants up to Clean Air Act standards would be financially impossible and result in plant closings. But clean air proponents say the technology to do it is available and feasible to implement, if the companies settle for just a little less profit.

"Midwest Generation paid a lot of money for these plants and they want to recoup it," said Brian Urbaszewski of the American Lung Association in Chicago, where he is involved in a campaign to force the Fisk and Crawford plants to clean up their acts. "The way to do that is to run them as cheaply as possible. The problem is, there is always a cost. Does the company pay the cost for cleaning up the plant, or does the public pay the cost in increased health costs, pain and suffering?"

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