- Apr 1, 2011
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The American Lung Association has received 20 million dollars from the EPA. Why do you imagine anyone would believe they are a credible source?
There is no sin except stupidity.
Oscar Wilde
Spin? How about FACTS? These 'new' regulations have been in place for over 20 years. The Obama administration is going to enforce the law...FINALLY.
Clinton tried, and would have succeeded if the 2000 election wasn't stolen by the Supreme Robes. During his administration, the EPA filed lawsuits against some of the nation's largest electric utilities. The government charged these companies with violating the Clean Air Act by expanding their coal-fired electric plants without controlling emissions such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide--noxious gases that cause smog, asthma, lung cancer, and premature death.
These companies had settled out of court to clean up their power plants.
Enter Bush...
The Bush administration quickly set about weakening the Clean Air Act, stoking public fears of energy shortages and blackouts as a rationale for leniency (even though 2001 was a record year for power plant expansion). White House staff and the Energy Department, working closely with lobbyists for the same companies we had sued, directed EPA to expand loopholes that allow 40- or 50-year-old power plants to continue pumping out 12 million tons of sulfur dioxide a year, without implementing modern pollution controls. What's more, in March, EPA Administrator Christine Whitman shocked everyone by publicly suggesting that companies hold off on settlements pending the outcome of litigation. Not surprisingly, Cinergy and Dominion backed out of their agreements and refused to sign consent decrees. (Recently, the administration rolled out a series of "reforms" making it so easy for these big plants to avoid pollution controls that they might as well have been written by defendants' lawyers.) A year and a half later, nothing has improved, and the opportunity for cleaner air that once seemed so close has been lost--the other companies, once on the path to settlement, have drifted away from the negotiating table.
In a matter of weeks, the Bush administration was able to undo the environmental progress we had worked years to secure. Millions of tons of unnecessary pollution continue to pour from these power plants each year as a result. Adding insult to injury, the White House sought to slash the EPA's enforcement budget, making it harder for us to pursue cases we'd already launched against other polluters that had run afoul of the law, from auto manufacturers to refineries, large industrial hog feedlots, and paper companies. It became clear that Bush had little regard for the environment--and even less for enforcing the laws that protect it. So last spring, after 12 years at the agency, I resigned, stating my reasons in a very public letter to Administrator Whitman.
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Charles Dean Connor
President and CEO, The American Lung Association
Confusion is a popular tool in Washington. The opposition campaign to the Environmental Protection Agency's new health standards for toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants is a clear example.
Lately, there seems to be a new claim every day about why some polluters can't or won't install modern pollution controls on their smokestacks. Far too often, what's missing from the discussion is the real and significant consequence of their resistance -- the health impacts. Cleaning up toxic air pollution will save lives, and this action is long overdue.
The American Lung Association thanks President Obama and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson for seeing through the smokescreen and putting the health of our children first. Life-threatening air pollutants from coal-fired power plants have slipped through a "toxic loophole" that has existed for more than 20 years. Finally, all power plants will be cleaned up. Half of the country's plants already have installed modern emissions controls, now is the time to finish the job.
The final standards, announced by President Obama this week, will protect Americans against life-threatening air pollution like mercury, arsenic and other toxins linked to cancer, heart disease, neurological damage, birth defects, asthma attacks and even premature death.
These standards are a lifesaver. Each year they will prevent 11,000 premature deaths and 130,000 childhood asthma attacks. Yet some big polluters and their allies in Congress continue to call for a delay. They want to postpone the cleanup by years and they want to emit up to 20 percent more mercury than the limits set by the Obama administration. But who could possibly justify needless deaths, disease and damage to children's neurological development?
This pollution impacts people who live and breathe in the shadow of the power plant and those that are hundreds of miles away. More than 400 coal-fired power plants located in 46 states across the country release in excess of 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants into the atmosphere each year.
Since President George H.W. Bush signed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 twenty-one years ago, companies have been on notice that this cleanup was coming. There is better and cheaper technology available now, that American companies make and American workers will install, to lower emissions.
Many power companies have made the investment or have plans to comply; they are to be commended. We urge the remainder to spend money on cleanup, not on lawyers and lobbyist to try to block these lifesaving standards. Step forward and work to maximize the pollution reductions and do your fair share to help those that breathe the air downwind from your smokestacks. No one wants to breathe your secondhand smog any more.
