OVEC Action Alert - January 21, 2003

Clean Air Action Alert! 
Senate To Vote to Block EPA's New Source Review Rollback

Friends,

As you probably know, the Bush Administration's weakening and rollbacks of air pollution rules under the New Source Review will allow polluting industries to make major renovations to their facilities without implementing upgrades that would reduce air emissions, as required previously. Kentucky and West Virginia have the nation's highest and second-highest per capita rate of death due to air pollution from power plants, according to a recent study released by US Public Interest Research Group, and very high rates of asthma and lost work days due to power plant pollution.

Senator John Edwards of North Carolina has introduced an amendment to the 2003 appropriations bill that will stop EPA from implementing the Bush Administration's rollbacks.

Please contact your senators:

In West Virginia, Sen Byrd's office (202) 224-3954 and Sen. Rockefeller's office (202) 224-6472 In Kentucky Sen Mitch McConnell ((202)224-2499 and Jim Bunning (202) 224-4343

TODAY or tomorrow and ask them to support Sen. Edwards amendment to the omnibus appropriations bill on New Source Review.

The vote could come as soon as Wednesday.

More details:

Within the next few days, and possibly as early as tomorrow, Senator Edwards will offer an amendment to the 2003 omnibus appropriations bill that will stop EPA from using FY 03 funds appropriated by Congress to implement any of the final weakening changes made to the NSR program last month. The amendment will also require a National Academy of Sciences study on the health impacts of the final NSR rollback rules signed by EPA on December 31.

This vote is the most significant action on clean air that has been considered on the floor of the Senate in years. We need to get a flood of calls into key Senate offices today and tomorrow. Below is a brief backgrounder on the issue, and a short phone rap to use in calling Senate offices. Attached are a couple of fact sheets, one on how the rules weaken clean air protections, and another on EPA's failure to respond to Congressional requests for analysis on the health impacts of the rules.

Background: Today, more than 140 million Americans live in areas where ozone smog levels are high enough to cause health problems such as asthma attacks and declining lung function. Moreover, fine particle pollution known as “soot” cuts short the lives of 30,000 Americans annually. This is to say nothing of the severe environmental impacts of air pollution, including acid rain, mercury contamination and haze in our national parks and wilderness areas.

Unfortunately, the Bush Administration is taking giant steps backward on air pollution. A coalition of oil, coal and utility lobbyists have waged a campaign to persuade the Bush Administration to weaken the rules of the Clean Air Act, especially the New Source Review program that requires power plants, refineries and other industries to install state-of-the-art pollution controls when they make major, pollution-increasing plant modifications. Each year, this program has kept more than a million tons of air pollution out of our skies.

EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman just signed a set of regulatory changes that add up to the largest regulatory weakening of clean air protections in the 30-year history of the Clean Air Act. These rule changes dramatically weaken the NSR program, and could allow pollution increases from upwards of 17,000 facilities across the nation. On the same day, she issued a proposal that would go even further, weakening the NSR program to the point of uselessness.

EPA took this action despite widespread opposition among the public, more than one thousand medical doctors, forty-four U.S. Senators, and more than one hundred members of Congress. Moreover, EPA ignored more than a dozen requests from Congress for detailed analysis of the rule changes' impact on public health, and requests for public hearings and opportunity to comment on the rule changes.

Dave Cooper, Organizer 
Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition 
PO Box 6753 
Huntington WV 25773-6753 
(304) 522-0246