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Bush screws the environment again...
The Bush administration plans to open a huge loophole in America's air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity. Critics of draft regulations due to be unveiled by the US environmental protection agency next week say they amount to a death knell for the Clean Air Act, the centrepiece of US regulation
The regulations are being challenged by 13 states including New York. If adopted, they would represent a multi-million dollar victory for energy corporations...
Under the current rules set in 1977, industrial sites built before the Clean Air Act are exempt from its controls until they are upgraded in any way, beyond "routine maintenance", that increases emissions. At that point companies have to install filters and other controls or face penalties.
Under the draft rules...corporations can do far more than "routine maintenance" - investing in old plant up to 20% of its total value at a time - without having to spend money on anti-pollution equipment.
The rules do not impose a time limit for the investment, allowing a firm to make successive upgrades to an old power station, oil refinery or factory - replacing it piece by piece, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars - as long as each upgrade costs less than a fifth of the plant's total value.
...I'm hoping the states individually have enough power to challenge this... do they? |
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