http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...-home-headlines

Opponents of 'Clear Skies' Bill Examined
The GOP sponsor of legislation championed by Bush asks two groups to turn over financial records. One official calls it intimidation.

By Alan C. Miller and Tom Hamburger, Times Staff Writers
February 19, 2005

WASHINGTON — The chairman of a Senate committee that oversees environmental issues has directed two national organizations that oppose President Bush's major clean-air initiative to turn over their financial and tax records to the Senate.

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, asked for the documents 10 days after a representative of the two groups criticized Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal before a Senate subcommittee. Inhofe is the leading sponsor of the administration bill, which is deadlocked in his panel.

The executive director of the two organizations, which represent state and local air pollution control agencies and officials, charged that the request was an attempt to intimidate critics of the measure.

Democratic senators on Inhofe's committee also were dismayed by his action, but declined to say so publicly because they were in the midst of sensitive negotiations with the chairman on the legislation, staffers said.

The committee's majority staff director, Andrew Wheeler, said the request for the groups' documents did not stem from their criticism of the legislation. He said the panel wanted to determine whether the groups represented only regulators' views or whether they also were subsidized by outside interests, including environmentalists or foundations.

The funding, Wheeler said, "goes to who they're speaking for."

William Becker, the executive director of both groups — the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators, which represents 48 state air pollution control agencies, and the Assn. of Local Air Pollution Control Officials, which represents more than 165 local agencies — said they received no money from environmental activists or other private interests.

The administration has proposed the "Clear Skies" initiative as part of its effort to overhaul the way the Clean Air Act forces power plants to cut emissions.

The measure would set new emission standards for three major pollutants and introduce a market-based approach favored by industry. Proponents say it would reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury emissions by 70%. Opponents say reductions could be achieved faster through tighter restrictions or other approaches, including existing Clean Air Act regulations.

Inhofe delayed a vote on the bill this week after he determined that he did not have the numbers to send it to the full Senate. The panel's 18 members are split, largely along party lines.

On Jan. 26, John Paul, an environmental regulator from Ohio, testified on behalf of both pollution control organizations. He told the Senate subcommittee that "Clear Skies" "fails on every one of our associations' core principals," was "far too lenient" on polluters and would undermine "states' abilities to protect air quality."

After the testimony, several senators sent a letter to Paul with follow-up questions; Inhofe included a request for financial statements, membership lists and tax returns for the last six years for both groups. Paul is the vice president and incoming president of the local air pollution group. Inhofe's request was first disclosed by Cox News Service on Friday.

The Senate committee asked for the information because it had long-standing concerns about the decision-making process of the state air pollution group, and was pursuing those questions as part of its oversight responsibility, Wheeler said.

"It has nothing to do with 'Clear Skies,' " he said. "If we wanted to intimidate them, we would have done it before they testified, not after."

Wheeler said there also were concerns about whether the state group purported to speak for all its members when some disagreed with its positions.

The two groups represent the views of the state and local regulators before the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress. They also do training, surveys and publish newsletters.

"We have a limited constituency — the 50 states and local agencies," Becker said. "These are the only ones for whom we can work."

Becker said Inhofe's request appeared to be "some sort of retaliation against some very legitimate criticism of [Bush's] 'Clear Skies' proposal."

Although the membership often is not unanimous on the state group's positions, Becker said, "We go to great pains to try to reach an overwhelming majority, not just a simple majority, and we succeed."

Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Los Angeles, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, said: "There is not even any subtlety about this. This is a blatant attempt at intimidation and bullying so that experts will be afraid to speak out about a bill that rolls back air pollution protections for all Americans."

A Republican who voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004, Paul gained prominence in March 2004 when he told the Los Angeles Times that an EPA advisory committee he co-chaired had been abruptly shelved after it requested comparative data on the administration's proposal to control mercury emissions from power plants. The EPA never produced the information.

He said he was "deeply disappointed" by Inhofe's request.

What a bunch of bullies...

I take this overt bullying as a good sign. They're afraid they're not going to push this crappy bill through. Can't even get it out of a Repub dominated committee.

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0225/p02s02-uspo.html

from the February 25, 2005 edition

'Clear Skies' plan: the battle heats up

Ten state attorneys general are accusing the Bush administration of diluting air-pollution standards.

By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The congressional fight over the Bush administration's clean air plan has turned into a political knock-down, drag out at several levels.

Ten state attorneys general are publicly opposing it. Environmental activists and labor unions are at odds over the measure, illustrating the classic split over jobs versus the environment. State and local air-pollution control officials and agencies have weighed in, prompting the chairman of the Senate environment committee to question their motives and investigate their possible connection to activists.

Two prominent Republican governors - George Pataki of New York and Arnold Schwarzenegger of California - have urged Washington to make sure that states be allowed "to have stronger pollution controls than those set for the nation as a whole," as is the case under current law. Their recent letter to congressional leaders was polite, but it made an important point: That heavily populated areas like New York City and Los Angeles may need stronger laws than those favored by the Bush administration and polluting industries.

Meanwhile, speakers at the annual meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science this week complained that the administration "has distanced itself from scientific information" on such issues as environmental protection.....

"The Clear Skies legislation will clean up the air by reducing utility emissions faster, more cheaply, and more efficiently than the Clean Air Act," says James Inhofe ® of Oklahoma, who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "Anyone who doubts this either does not understand the legislation or has not paid attention to the endless litigation over the last 15 years.".....

Earlier this month, the attorneys general of 10 states (New York, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Vermont) wrote to Senator Jeffords that passage of the Clear Skies measure "would mark the first time in the history of the Clean Air Act that Congress had weakened the statute, thereby consigning the country to dirtier air and increased levels of acid rain and disease."

John Paul, supervisor of a six-county regional air pollution control agency centered in Dayton, Ohio:

"Given the serious deficiencies of this legislative proposal, we believe that continued implementation of the Clean Air Act will provide far greater, and more certain and timelier, protection of public health and the environment," Mr. Paul told a recent Senate hearing, speaking on behalf of agencies overseeing pollution-control efforts at the state, territorial, and municipal level.

Shortly after Paul's testimony, Senator Inhofe directed the organizations to submit financial and tax records. Organization officials and Senate Democrats say this is a blatant attempt to intimidate witnesses critical of the administration measure......

While such complaints may be legitimate and worthy of debate, it did not go without notice that all 10 attorneys general signing the letter are Democrats.

At the moment, the Senate committee is deadlocked on the Clear Skies bill. Another vote has been scheduled for early next week.

http://csmonitor.com/2005/0225/p02s02-uspo.html


[Call, email or write your senators to oppose this bill.]

These people have run our government like a Mafia organization .. and yet, people didn't care and re-elected them. I don't think I'll ever understand it ...