Dear cali dem,

Today is Valentine's Day and some members of Congress are hard at work creating the ultimate Sweetheart Deal for our nation's biggest polluters. This week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is poised to vote on the so-called "Clear Skies" Initiative, a dangerous piece of legislation that's great for major polluters but very bad for our air quality and Smoke Stackhealth.

Click here to send a free fax to your Senators urging them to reject this "sweetheart" deal for polluters. Or if you're a registered user simply hit "reply" and then hit "send" and we'll automatically send the message below on your behalf.

The "Clear Skies" initiative is a legislative attempt to gut the Clean Air Act that has protected the air we breathe for more than 30 years. It repeals protections for our national parks, delays deadlines to meet the Act's health standards, relaxes pollution reduction requirements for power plants and other major pollution sources, and ignores global warming.

If this pollution plan passes, it will mean a huge step backward in reducing the amount of pollution in our air and in our lungs.

This pollution plan was rejected by Congress in both 2002 and 2003. But now proponents of this plan are hoping they have the political support to hand over a Sweetheart Deal to major polluters just in time for Valentine's Day.

Please don't delay! The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is expected to vote on the bill this week. Click here to tell your Senators that you oppose the "Clear Skies" initiative.

We need your help to spread the word about this dangerous legislation. Once you've taken action, please take a moment to forward this email to your friends, family and co-workers urging them to send a fax to their Senators too!

Thank you for your help and happy Valentine's Day!

Sincerely,

Katelyn Sabochik
Online Campaign Manager
info@saveourenvironment.org

Dear cali dem:

Thank you for contacting me to express your opposition to the
"Clear Skies Act." I appreciate you taking the time to share with me
your views on this important issue.

As you know, the "Clear Skies Act,@ (S. 131) would regulate
nitrous oxides (smog), sulfur dioxide and mercury, but not carbon
dioxide, the worst greenhouse gas from power plants. In addition, it
would actually undercut the current Clean Air Act requirements by
allowing more nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide to be emitted by power
plants than the current law.

For these reasons, I have cosponsored Senator Jeffords "Clean
Power Act." This legislation seeks to amend the Clean Air Act to
require the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to
develop regulations which reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxide, carbon dioxide, and mercury from power plants by January 1,
2009. I believe this legislation would be more effective than the
"Clear Skies Act" since it also seeks to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas that is released into the atmosphere.

Currently, the "Clear Skies Act" has been placed before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Although I am not a member of this committee, please know that I oppose this bill and
support real reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants.

Again, thank you for your letter. I hope you will continue to
write me about issues that are important to you. If you have any
additional comments or questions, please feel free to contact my
Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

The senate environment committee voted on Wednesday 9-9 to send the bill to the senate floor, thus it does not go for a full vote yet.

--------------

February 16, 2005

Jim Connaughton
Ask the White House

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ask/20050216.html

I'm glad to be back once again on Ask the White House to answer your questions about the pending Clear Skies legislation and the President's national clean air strategy. The President renewed his call for this legislation in his recent State of the Union Address, stating that four years of discussion and debate is enough. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, under the leadership of Chairman James Inhofe is poised to complete committee level negotiations on their version of the Clear Skies legislation before bringing it to a vote in two weeks time. We look forward to successful completion of that important milestone in the process to successful passage.

[see his answers]

Federal Rule Resets Soot and Smog Limits

Updated 4:14 PM ET March 10, 2005

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pr...88obh7g0&src=ap

By JOHN HEILPRIN

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration on Thursday ordered reductions in smog and soot pollution across 28 states in the East, South and Midwest with the goal of making the air cleaner to breathe for people downwind of coal-burning power plants.

Consumers who get electricity from the companies' plants can expect their monthly power bills to increase eventually by up to $1 to pay for the changes.

The Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations set pollution quotas for 28 states and the District of Columbia on smog-forming nitrogen oxides and soot-producing sulfur dioxide. Most of the states are east of the Mississippi River.

The agency envisions that the clean air rule will prevent 17,000 premature deaths and 700,000 cases annually of bronchitis, asthma and other respiratory ailments, while also improving the air in parks and forests.

The rule "will result in the largest pollution reductions and health benefits of any air rule in more than a decade," said Stephen Johnson, the EPA's acting administrator and President Bush's nominee to be the agency's full-time chief.

EPA officials estimate that achieving the pollution cuts will end up costing about $4 billion a year, but that the benefits will be much greater; for example, $85 billion annually from improved health among people downwind. The benefits to outdoor visibility were put at $2 billion a year.

By 2015, nitrogen oxide pollution will have to be reduced by 1.9 million tons annually, or 61 percent below 2003 levels. Sulfur dioxide pollution must drop by 5.4 million tons, a 57 percent reduction.

Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense, an advocacy and research group that has championed the new regulations, said the EPA was taking "the biggest step in a decade" to cut smog and soot from power plant smokestacks and help millions of people breathe easier.

Other environmental groups and some state attorneys general were less enthusiastic.

"We need the reductions sooner to achieve clean air for our citizens as is required by the Clean Air Act," said Peter Lehner, environmental protection chief in the New York attorney general's office.

John Walke, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA is at least recognizing that power plant pollution is a threat to public health and that utilities and plant owners have the money to clean it up.

"Unfortunately, under today's rule, more than 31 million Americans still will be breathing unsafe levels of deadly soot and asthma-inducing smog a decade from now," he said.

The EPA said 474 counties now have too much smog and 224 counties have too much soot, fine particles of pollution that are 30 times smaller than human hair.

It is up to states to decide how best to achieve those reductions. But the rule envisions requiring power plants to install new scrubbers for sulfur dioxide or chemical processes for nitrogen oxides as the least costly way. Plant operators are allowed, under a trading system, to buy pollution allowances from other plants that did more in cutting emissions than was required.

Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the power industry's Edison Electric Institute, said the exact requirements depend on decisions not yet made by the EPA and states. But he said market trading would help lessen costs for consumers.

The regulations had competed with a legislative plan Bush hoped would accomplish some of the same things _ reduced smog and soot pollution. But the regulations set deadlines consistent with the Clean Air Act.

Bush's legislative plan would have given power plants more time to reduce air pollution and limited states' tools for addressing the local impact, according to the Congressional Research Service. But it suffered a major setback Wednesday when a Republican-controlled Senate committee rejected it.

States affected by the new regulations are Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The EPA next week plans to issue the nation's first regulations for reducing emission of toxic mercury from power plants.