US legislation due this week on utility pollution
Date: 27-Feb-03
Country: USA
EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said she expected broad support in both the House of Representatives and Senate for a White House plan to reduce three pollutants from power plants by 2018.
"There may be a difference between the House and the Senate versions but ... those would not be significant, nothing that would cause us not to support it," Whitman told reporters after addressing a meeting of U.S. utility commissioners.
Pollution released from power plants is linked to smog and acid rain, increasing respiratory ailments such as asthma.
The White House last year proposed requiring U.S. utilities to cut emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and mercury by 70 percent by 2018. Companies would be allowed to trade pollution credits.
The sponsor of a bill to be introduced this week is Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican who heads the Senate Environment committee. The bill will mirror "very closely the president's proposal," a spokesman for the committee said.
Calls to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce were not returned.
Environmentalists and some Democrats have criticized the Bush administration proposal, saying it gives the industry too much leeway to skirt the new rules.
Whitman defended the plan, saying it would allow the industry more flexibility to determine how to gradually reduce pollution in a cost-effective manner.
"It is difficult to move against the status quo," said Whitman. "Our environment isn't static and our policy to address the environment shouldn't be either."
Earlier this month, Senate Democrats introduced legislation that would cut carbon dioxide emissions by 21 percent by 2009. The bill lacks broad support in the Republican-controlled chamber.