President Bush is Dancing a Toxic-Two Step and Big Oil is Playing the Tune. The Bush Administration wants to pay back their campaign contributors and industry friends by gutting the Clean Air Act, allowing corporate polluters to reap huge profits at the expense of public health.

Toxic polluters, such as oil refineries and power plants, have been breaking the law for years. For example, 80% of all oil refineries are in violation with the Clean Air Act.

• Court Blocks Changes to Clean Air Act (12/24/03)
• Court Blocks Bush EPA Changes to Clean Air Act Press Release, (12/24/03)
• Refinery Reform Challenges Senate on new EPA nominee
  (9/09/03)
• Clean Air Act overhaul
  Beaumont Examiner, (9/04/03)

Now these industrial polluters are turning to their friends in the White House to change the law, allowing more producers to release even higher levels of pollution every year.

Of particular concern are efforts aimed at eliminating New Source Review, a program under the Clean Air Act that requires new and existing facilities to use modern pollution control equipment when modifying operations that increase pollution emissions. New Source Review has been successful in reducing toxic emissions, in some cases by more than 60,000 tons per year, per facility. Industrial polluters would like to see the program eliminated for this very reason.

How much extra pollution could be increased as a result the Bush proposals?
A lot!

A new report calculates just how bad the Bush EPA proposals are for your right to breathe clean Air.

• Download the Executive Summary - PDF Document
• Download the Full Report - PDF Document

We ran the numbers on a representative sample of 17 refineries in the U.S. and found that facilities could increase their pollution by twice as much or more. Trading Public Health for Corporate Wealth.

Air pollution in the form of particulate matter is already responsible for killing more people than any other single cause except cigarette smoking. Asthma impacts one in four Americans and childhood asthma has tripled in the past three years, making it the leading cause of school absences. Rolling back the Clean Air Act will mean that even more people would get sick and die from air pollution in their communities. Lawmakers should not be lawbreakers. The government has a responsibility to the American people to ensure clean air for all.

• Hilton Kelley testimony
• Refinery Reform testimony packet - PDF Document
• Port Arthur activist testifies against easing clean air laws
  Houston Chronicle (7/16/02)
• Texas refiners in Senate spotlight Hearing to focus on Bush plan to ease emissions requirements
  Houston Chronicle (7/13/02)
• Senate Holds Another Hearing on Refinery Pollution:
  July 30, 2002
  Read Former Texas Air Inspector's Testimony
• Port Arthur plant gets attention in D.C; Mishap-laden refinery focus of clean air laws
  Houston Chronicle (7/31/02)

• Clear the Air Report: Power to Kill - PDF Document (918kb)
• EPA - NSR Background