FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 22, 2002

NO TIME TO WASTE, ADMINISTRATION GETS TO WORK, DISMANTLING CLEAN AIR ACT
"NEW SOURCE REVIEW" RULES ROLLED BACK, WILL FACE OPPOSITION ON MULTIPLE FRONTS

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In their most significant attack on the environment yet, the Bush Administration today rewarded major campaign contributors with sweeping rollbacks of the Clean Air Act. These changes to the Act's "New Source Review" safeguards will allow major energy corporations to increase air pollution dramatically. "Final rules" signed today by EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman are now law, while even more drastic "proposed rules" moved one step closer to becoming law.

"The old adage is true: you get what you pay for. The polluters today got a huge return on their investment in the Bush campaign, when the Administration carved gigantic new loopholes in the Clean Air Act," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, Director of Public Citizen's Texas Office. "However, these big donors should know that these changes are going to be met by opposition at every step - in the courts, in the states, and in Congress."

New Source Review is the Clean Air Act program that requires the oldest and dirtiest "grandfathered" power plants and refineries to install modern pollution controls, whenever they make major modifications that substantially increase pollution. The program also applies to more than 17,000 industrial facilities like incinerators, refineries, steel mills, and paper plants. A preliminary search of Federal Election Commission data reveals that several of the utilities charged with violating this clean air law were major donors to Republicans, giving more than twice as much as to Democrats in both the 2000 and 2002 election cycles.

"Texas citizens have actively supported enforcement of existing health-based clean air protections, and will continue to fight for their right to breathe," stated Karen Hadden, Deputy Director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. "Texans decrying the Administration's 'Toxic Two-Step,' were among the 130,000 who commented to the EPA nationwide. Over 90% of the comments called for full enforcement of the Clean Air Act, not rollbacks. Gutting the law will have very real, very serious health consequences for Texans, 2/3 of whom already live in areas that don't meet health-based standards for clean air," continued Hadden.

Potentially even worse than these Final Rules, however, are additional changes being proposed by the Administration that would allow power plants to make virtually any change to their facilities - even ones that significantly increase pollution - without having to install new pollution controls. These changes would effectively kill the New Source Review program for existing power plants.

"The American people have expressed real concerns about weakening the Clean Air Act," said Hadden. "Today the Administration made clear that relaxing clean air safeguards for big polluters outweighs the health concerns of the general public," she continued.

"The Administration is pardoning some of Texas' largest polluters- like Alcoa and ExxonMobil and other refineries that have made illegal modifications to their plants and increased their pollution," said Denny Larson, Director of the Refinery Reform Campaign. "This giveaway by the Administration will mean that these plants won't be required to reduce emissions. As a result Texans will be forced to continue to breathe toxic air," added Larson.

For a complete description of the changes announced today, please see the factsheet below.

* METHODOLOGY: These numbers are based on contributions from PACs, soft money donors, and individuals giving $200 or more. (Only those groups giving $5,000 or more are listed here.) In many cases, the organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates. Donations considered in the 2000 election cycle took place during 1999-2000 and were released by the Federal Election Commission. Donations considered in the 2002 election cycle took place during 2001-2002 and were released by the Federal Election Commission on Monday, September 09, 2002. Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.

FACTSHEET:
"FINAL RULE" CHANGES TO NEW SOURCE REVIEW
SIGNED NOVEMBER 22, 2002

• Plantwide Applicability Limit (PAL)
  Allows factories such as power plants, refineries and chemical facilities to avoid modern emission control requirements by placing a cap on overall facility emissions based on their most polluting 24-month period in the last decade.
  PROBLEM: Establishes perpetual grandfathering of excessive emissions at old dirty units, and would allow increases in pollutants from some units above current levels.
• Clean Unit Loophole
  Allows sources that install something comparable to Best Available Control Technology to escape NSR for 10-15 years, even if the source makes major changes that significantly increase pollution emissions.
  PROBLEM: Clean up technology is improving rapidly and standards for "best available control" continually tighten as a result. But this provision would essentially freeze progress for more than a decade and create, in effect, a new "grandfathering" status.
• Changes in How to Determine Whether an Emission Increase has Occurred
  Non-utility sources of pollution may now use a more lenient method of calculating whether an emission increase has occurred as a result of a major modification. The new test is the same as that used for utilities.
  PROBLEM: Since the early 1990's, utilities have enjoyed a more lenient method for calculating emission increases compared to other industries. By extending this loophole to industrial facilities, emissions will be even harder to control under this new definition of emission increase.
  PROBLEM: The new rule will also allow sources to pick and choose the "baseline" that increases are measured from -- from as long ago as ten years. Thus, neighbors of a facility which has long had lower emissions for a decade could suddenly be faced with large emissions increases, with no legal recourse.
• Pollution Control Exemption
  EPA will allow a source to avoid cleaning up to modern standards for all pollutants if the source has installed pollution controls for only one pollutant.
  PROBLEM: This means that a source that puts on controls to clean up N0x emissions can make changes that increase S02, particulate matter, or benzene without modernizing controls for those pollutants.