New Laws May Let Power Plants Pollute More

By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Oct 13,11:50 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051014/ap_on_...HNlYwN5bmNhdA--

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration proposed new regulations Thursday that could allow the nation's dirtiest power plants to release more air pollutants each year — and possibly undercut lawsuits aimed at forcing companies to comply with the Clean Air Act.

The proposal follows a June federal court ruling that said power plants can throw more pollutants into the air each year when they modernize to operate for longer hours.

It's the latest in a series of attempts by the Environmental Protection Agency to make the nearly 30-year-old Clean Air Act rules for coal-fired power plants more industry-friendly. Some changes were held up by lawsuits from environmentalists and state officials.

"We are now doing to smokestacks what we did to tailpipes," said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, who predicted the regulations would spur greater technology innovation.

"We want to remove any unnecessary regulatory obstacles," he said. "We're focused on practical, achievable results that don't get delayed by years of litigation."

The EPA proposal affects the nation's 600 coal-burning power plants, which represent 55 percent of the nation's electric generating capacity. Industry officials say the plants are getting cleaner. But they continue to produce millions of tons of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide blamed for smog, acid rain and soot and other fine particles that lodge in people's lungs and cause asthma and other respiratory ailments. They also remain a big source of mercury, which works its way up the food chain after being absorbed by fish.

EPA "is embracing industry-backed loopholes that undermine basic protections for millions of Americans breathing harmful smokestack pollution," said Vickie Patton, an attorney who handles air quality issues for the advocacy group Environmental Defense.

Proponents say other EPA and state regulations would prevent that from happening.

"The heavy lifting of emissions control is already ensured by tough new EPA rules on interstate emissions and mercury control," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents electric utilities.

Utilities are legally obligated to continue to cut their pollution, said Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, another trade group. He said it was "a gross distortion of the facts" to conclude that power plants would increase pollution.

But an analysis of EPA data by Environmental Defense shows many East Coast power plants won't install new controls to clean up sulfur dioxide by 2015, despite EPA's predictions.

In June, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Duke Energy Corp. didn't need permission from EPA or states when it improved eight power plants in North Carolina and South Carolina from 1988 to 2000. But EPA seems to depart from another ruling in June, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In a challenge by New York to EPA's air programs, that court said "Congress directed the agency to measure emissions increases in terms of changes in actual emissions," not by hourly rates.

The Bush administration in 2002 and 2003 rewrote how EPA administers a Clean Air Act program that Congress approved in 1977. It was designed to ensure that aging power plants would have to install state-of-the-art equipment if they expanded or modernized in a way that results in significantly more air pollution in surrounding communities.

Former President Clinton used the program to bring suits against 51 aging, coal-burning power plants, primarily in the Ohio Valley and the South. Those new regulations have been placed on hold while federal courts review challenges to them by state officials and environmental and health groups.

But during the Bush presidency, Justice Department officials have continued to negotiate settlements in which many of the sued utilities agreed to pay stiff fines and install new pollution controls costing in the hundreds of millions of dollars. They have also filed new lawsuits against other coal-burning power plants since Bush took office.

Johnson said the EPA would continue to support cases already filed, but new ones in the pipeline would be taken up only if they conformed to the agency's new regulations.

But EPA's proposed rule "will adversely impact our enforcement cases and is largely unenforceable as written," Adam Kushner, director of EPA's Air Enforcement Division, wrote in an August 25 internal memo, obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council advocacy group.

The latest EPA proposal would accomplish through regulation more changes along the lines of what the administration has tried to do in Congress and the courts. A version of the changes had been included in the House energy bill until last week.

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On the Net: EPA: http://www.epa.gov/nsr

Conditions for oil, gas drilling permits relaxed

Wednesday, October 19, 2005
By John Heilprin, The Associated Press

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05292/590924.stm

WASHINGTON -- In an aggressive push by the Bush administration to open more public land to oil and gas production, the Interior Department has quit conducting environmental reviews and seeking comments from local residents every time drilling companies propose new wells.

Field officials have been told to begin looking at issuing permits based on past studies of an entire project, even though some of those assessments may be outdated. The instructions are in a directive from the department's Bureau of Land Management expected to cover hundreds of anticipated new drilling applications.

President Bush and Congress authorized the streamlining as part of a 1,724-page energy bill signed into law in August. BLM officials, saying the need for energy supplies is immediate, showed unusual speed implementing it. Kathleen Clarke, the agency's director, sent out the new guidance Sept. 30.

"Yes, it is a priority of the White House," BLM Deputy Director Jim Hughes said in an interview. "We are moving expeditiously to implement the law. We think all these items will increase the supply this winter. However, everyone is saying it won't be enough to wipe out the impact of the hurricanes and all that."

The energy bill created new "categorical exclusions" under the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act for allowing new oil, gas and geothermal wells without first conducting environmental studies or soliciting public comment on them. The exclusions from normal permit requirements cover instances when less than 150 acres and no more than five acres in any one spot are disturbed and where nearby drilling has occurred in the past five years.

"We don't think there will be any environmental degradation," Mr. Hughes said. "It's basically going into areas where you've already got stuff happening, where you've got existing NEPA work that had been completed. We think in many cases this is just duplicative work."

Energy producers would still be required to comply with other environmental laws, such as those intended to protect endangered species, air and water quality and cultural artifacts.

So far, no new permits have been issued under the new guidance. But Interior officials expect it to spur more drilling on open ranges and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Those include the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, the Uintah Basin of Utah and the San Juan Basin of New Mexico and Colorado, all areas where drilling has already boomed in recent years.

Other areas ripe for the expedited permits are near parkland, such as Colorado's Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, though not within national parks or wilderness areas.

Last year, the bureau approved 6,052 drilling permits from about 7,000 applications submitted -- a 60 percent jump in new permits over those issued in 2003. This year, BLM expects it will approve 7,000 of the 8,000 new applications, Mr. Hughes said.

Environmentalists say they will continue to insist that environmental reviews are up-to-date.

"They have to have a fairly recent analysis of the impacts before they can apply these categorical exclusions," said Dave Alberswerth, public lands director for The Wilderness Society. "If they're planning to improperly apply these exemptions ... in places where there are old land use plans that are out of date, then they are asking for legal trouble."

The government had 55,385 square miles of public lands leased out for oil and natural gas production last year, but only a third of it -- 18,236 square miles -- was involved in actual energy production. Nearly all the leases BLM considered nonproducing have never had an exploratory well drilled, or even a single application for a permit to drill filed with BLM.

"If you look at the actual facts on the ground, they have thousands of more drilling permits in their pockets than they can even drill on," Mr. Alberswerth said. "So why is Congress or the administration always looking for ways to exempt the wealthiest companies in the world from their environmental responsibilities?"