For Immediate Release: June 13, 2002
For More Information:  Rebecca Stanfield, U.S. PIRG
(202) 546-9707 x 342


Today the Bush Administration will unveil its regulatory changes to a key clean air program, which he promised last year after an intense industry lobbying push led by Atlanta-based Southern Company. The move will gut the “New Source Review” program, allowing older power plants, refineries and other facilities in nearly every state in the nation to operate without modern pollution controls, even when they are making significant modifications to the facilities. Pollution from old, coal-burning power plants across the nation trigger an estimated 30,000 premature deaths and hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks annually.

“Once again, the Administration is giving a massive gift to the energy companies that contributed heavily to the Bush campaign,” said Rebecca Stanfield, Clean Air Advocate for U.S. Public Interest Research Group. “The loss of this program will mean thousands of premature deaths per year that could have been prevented,” she continued.

Electric utilities pushed for weakening the NSR rules during the 1999 Presidential campaign and in the early months of the Bush Administration. Documents have emerged showing that the Cheney Energy Task Force met and exchanged memos with Southern Company executives on the issue. The Bush energy plan issued last spring included a mandate to review the regulations as well as dozens of ongoing enforcement actions. A subsequent comment period drew comments from 130,000 concerned citizens opposing any move to weaken clean air rules.

“It is difficult to imagine a more aggressive assault on our clean air protections,” said Stanfield. “We hope and expect that many of these changes will be found to be illegal, but in the meantime a lot of people will suffer unnecessarily from heart and lung disease, and a log of environmental damage will already be done.”

There are approximately 59 facilities, including power plants, refineries, and other major sources of air pollution in Montana whose pollution could increase as a result of these new loopholes. Rollbacks of the NSR could potentially increase NOx emissions by 4,127 tons per year, and increase SO2 emissions by 14,521 tons, from Colstrip, J.E. Corette and Lewis and Clark Power Plants alone.

For more information, reports and fact sheets on this issue, please go to www.savethecleanairact.org.