Northeastern lawmakers oppose President's "Clear Skies," but House outlook remains dim

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers from Northeastern states suffering from the effects of acid rain are teaming up against the White House to curb emissions of sulfur dioxide, the cause of acid rain that damages trees and acidifies lakes and streams.

The lawmakers are critical of President Bush's so-called "Clear Skies" initiative, which the administration says would reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and two other pollutants -- nitrogen oxides, the primary cause of smog, and mercury, a neurotoxin that has contaminated lakes and fish -- by 70 percent by 2018.

The Bush plan would cap power plant emissions of these three pollutants, allowing utilities to trade emissions credits with each other.

But the lawmakers warn that the President's plan would weaken current environmental protections. They point out that the Clean Air Act already requires power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by as much as 90 percent by 2008.

Sen. James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., said the Bush plan is too little too late.

"Acid rain continues to fall on the Northeast and Southeast, damaging sensitive ecosystems and acidifying lakes and streams," Jeffords said.

Jeffords, Susan M. Collins and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., are pushing legislation with 20 co-sponsors that would require power plants to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by 81 percent by 2008. It would also cut nitrogen oxides by 71 percent, mercury by 90 percent and carbon dioxide by 21 percent in the next six years.

Under their bill, power plants would have less flexibility in buying and selling pollution credits.

Clinton said the Northeasterners' measure would significantly reduce the power plant pollution that contributes to acid rain, which since the 1960s caused more than half of the large canopy trees in the Adirondacks to die and 20 percent of the lakes in New York to become too acidic to support fish.

Clinton also argued that the legislation would reduce power plant pollution that contributes to more than 1,800 premature deaths in New York, 1,200 respiratory-related hospitalizations and 37,000 asthma attacks each year.

Becky Stanfield, an attorney with U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said the President's program "guts" current clean air protections and "lets companies off the hook."

Jim Owen, a spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, a Washington-based association of shareholder-owned electric companies, says the Northeasterners' plan is "draconian."

"The timetable and the reduction targets are unnecessarily steep," Owen said, adding that it would require many power plants to switch from burning coal to burning natural gas, which gives off fewer emissions but would be very costly.

The lawmakers also expressed their opposition to the Bush administration's proposal last week to let electrical utilities voluntarily reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most directly linked to global climate change.

Lieberman, a presidential candidate, scoffed at the President's plan, saying such voluntary programs "just don't produce results."

But Owen said there is "no effective way right now to capture carbon dioxide from the stack. There is no successful technology to stop it."

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, who backs Bush's approach, acknowledged that the Northeasterners "have a shot at" passage of their legislation.

But it appears any efforts to cap carbon dioxide emissions would fail in the House.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who is chairman of a critical subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce panel, said if carbon dioxide regulation is included, the measure "is not going anywhere."