Here is a good site to review the outline of Bush's "Clear Skies" plan:

http://www.nrdc.org/air/pollution/qbushplan.asp

1. Is air pollution from power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities really still a problem?

Yes. Although progress has been made cleaning up air pollution since the Clean Air Act was passed in 1970, air quality has remained poor or has even deteriorated in many parts of the country. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 120 million Americans live in areas where the air is unhealthy. From the aggravation of respiratory problems such as asthma and emphysema to premature death, air pollution takes a toll on Americans' health. It also harms the environment, causing acid rain, ozone damage to trees and crops, mercury contamination, and global warming.

2. What are the worst sources of industrial air pollution?

Electric power plants. They are the single largest industrial source of some of the worst air pollutants, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and mercury. In 1998, power plants were responsible for 67 percent of the annual total sulfur dioxide, more than one-quarter of the nitrogen oxides, 33 percent of the mercury and 40 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.

3. What effect does this pollution have on Americans?

Scientists have shown that power plant pollution is linked to serious health effects and environmental damage:

Premature death: In the eastern United States, sulfur dioxide is the primary component of fine particles that can be inhaled deeply into the lungs, and are linked with respiratory disease and premature death. Power plants emit two-thirds of U.S. sulfur dioxide pollution and are responsible for shortening the lives of an estimated 30,000 Americans each year.

Asthma: Nitrogen oxides are major ingredients in ozone pollution (smog). During 1999, ozone pollution levels rose above the level the EPA deems healthy more than 7,694 times in 43 states and the District of Columbia. Smog and fine particle pollution are especially damaging for the 14.9 million asthma sufferers in this country, including 5 million children. In 1997, smog triggered more than 6 million asthma attacks and sent almost 160,000 people to the emergency room in the eastern United States alone.

Mercury contamination: Mercury can cause serious neurological and developmental damage, including birth defects, subtle losses of sensory or cognitive ability, and delays in developmental milestones such as walking and talking. Power plants are responsible for 34 percent of all mercury emissions, which settle into our waters, where they accumulate in fish. In 41 states, officials warn against eating fish from mercury-contaminated lakes and rivers.

Acid rain: Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants form acids in the atmosphere that fall to earth as rain, fog, snow or dry particles. This "acid rain" is often carried hundreds of miles by the wind. Acid rain damages forests and kills fish, and can also damage buildings, historical monuments and even cars.

Global warming: Power plants emit 40 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide pollution, the primary cause of global warming. Scientists say that unless global warming emissions are reduced, average U.S. temperatures could be 3 to 9 degrees higher by the end of the century -- with far-reaching effects. Air pollution will worsen. Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas. Heat waves will be more frequent and intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often in some regions, heavy rains and flooding in others. Species will disappear from their historic ranges and habitats will be lost. Many of these changes have already begun.

4. What is the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" initiative, and will it help reduce air pollution?

The Bush administration developed a plan called the Clear Skies initiative and submitted it to Congress in February 2003 as a proposal to amend the Clean Air Act, which is the primary federal law governing air quality. But "Clear Skies" is a clear misnomer, because if Congress passes the Clear Skies bill, the result will be to weaken and delay health protections already required under the law.

The Clear Skies legislation sets new targets for emissions of sulfur dioxide, mercury, and nitrogen oxides from U.S. power plants. But these targets are weaker than those that would be put in place if the Bush administration simply implemented and enforced the existing law! Compared to current law, the Clear Skies plan would allow three times more toxic mercury emissions, 50 percent more sulfur emissions, and hundreds of thousands more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides. It would also delay cleaning up this pollution by up to a decade compared to current law and force residents of heavily-polluted areas to wait years longer for clean air compared to the existing Clean Air Act.

Sorry to repeat an earlier post, I just thought this was germaine.

Emissions jujitsu, Blue States style.

I have recently read from several sources that the Bush clan is planning a massive tax ripoff to underwrite all the goodies they are giving their rich friends. The plan is to get rid of the tax deductibility of State and local tax. If this isn't a whopping tax raid on mid to lower income earners in Blue States I don't know what is.

Well here is a way the Blue States (and even Red States short on cash) can fight back. Over the course of the election I made several suggestions that the Kerry campaign fund their way back to fiscal sanity by raising the fees on Toxic Release Inventory and SARA emissions. My argument was that the fee programs were already in legislation and that the Congress couldn't have stopped President Kerry (sob...) from using that as a revenue source that would simultaneously tax a 'bad' instead of on income which is a 'good'. The excellent thing about 'fees' on a bad like pollution is that voters will support this but not a 'tax' on the good of their income.

The Bugbear in the details was that this power was given to the State Governments, not the Federal Government. Kerry couldn't have raised the fees without an act of the Republican Congress.

Recent developments seem to have given new life to this proposal. Our cash strapped States make use of this source right now. Even better, States have the jurisdictional right to exceed Federal requirements. We can have 'fees' on corporate Greenhouse Gases as well. A States Rights issue we would even be safe with the Supreme Court. And the karma here is good - if Bush gives tax breaks to his friendly polluter so can we taketh away.

The thing is, we need some people across America to write and give the ideas to their Governors and State Legislatures. I can't so much because I live in Australia and my home state, Alaska, is dead Red.

So I guess the question is...

Do you disagree with Bush?

What's to disagree with? The man doesn't have policies that you can critique. He is more like a malevalent force that wants to give public goodies not just to private enterprise, which would have an ideological basis, but to his private friends.

He is either very corrupt and pretending to be dumb, or very dumb and surrounded by very corrupt people. Either way, there isn't much choice but to oppose him or try to work around him if you want to accomplish anything good coming out of America these days.

Sorry, I guess a third option is to be both dumb and corrupt.

Kind of like the No Child Left Behind program that is leaving millions of kids behind. Orwell could never have created a Nuspeak more Orwellean than the chimp and his zookeepers...

They do have it down to a fine art don't they? I'm reading 1984 again and hi-liting things on almost every page.

The fourth option is to be Cheney's neo-con puppet.