Smog Provision In Federal Energy Bill Frustrates Lawmakers, Clean-air Advocates

by Kevin Joy

WASHINGTON - Environmental advocates and many lawmakers are fuming over a little-noticed provision in the $30 billion federal energy bill that they say could result in smoggier skies over Connecticut.

The provision would permit the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to extend smog reduction deadlines established under 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. If an area could prove some of its pollution comes from another community or state-for instance, by pollutants traveling downwind-it wouldn't have to clean up its own emissions until the outside polluter did.

The outcome would be a continuous finger-pointing game with no incentive for ecological responsibility, said Christopher Phelps, an advocate for the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group (ConnPIRG), a watchdog organization.

And for Connecticut, a state already faced with high summer ozone levels, a large commuter population and close proximity to New York City, activists say the extended deadlines for air quality standards could produce devastating long-term effects.

"You'll have sides saying, 'It's not our pollution, it's your pollution," Phelps said. "And in the meantime, nobody's cleaning up their air."

The measure was not in the original versions of the energy bill passed by the House and Senate earlier this year, but instead was inserted during negotiations on a final bill last week at the behest of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex. The House approved the bill, 246-180, Tuesday, and the measure awaits Senate action this week.

A number of senators on both sides of the aisle have threatened to try to kill the bill, a high priority for President Bush. The administration contends the bill would reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, while opponents argue it would provide too many tax incentives to energy producers and delay efforts to clean up air on a local level.

Angela Ledford, executive director of the Washington-based environmental group Clear the Air, called the provision "appalling" and said it overlooks Connecticut residents' health needs.

Ten percent-or 86,000-of Connecticut children have asthma, compared with 6 percent nationally, ConnPIRG reported. Medical experts say polluted air is a main cause of respiratory problems.

Connecticut has some of the nation's most stringent air quality regulations, and Gov. John G. Rowland signed a bill into law in 2000 cleaning up the state's aging "sooty six" power plants. Nevertheless, the number of days during which Connecticut residents were exposed to unhealthy amounts of smog rose by 177 percent from 2000 to 2002, according to the EPA.

An analysis by Abt Associates, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, concluded that Connecticut residents could face an additional 10,756 asthma attacks, 135 hospitalizations and 15,000 lost school days because of symptoms resulting from increasingly poor air quality stemming directly from the energy bill's extension of clean air deadlines.

Both Rowland, a Republican, and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, have criticized the energy bill, with Rowland calling it "government at its worst."

Blumenthal said the provision was a "backdoor attempt to save polluters in the Midwest and the South from the expense of having to reduce emissions."

Reps. Rob Simmons and Nancy Johnson, both Connecticut Republicans, voted for the bill Tuesday. Simmons said that while he would continue to support a strong Clean Air Act, his vote could be likened to "swallowing a rat"-in other words, he said, "taking the bad with the good."

The "bipartisan energy bill had more than enough good provisions to warrant my support," Simmons said in a statement. "The energy bill passed today by a large majority is not perfect; far from it. But politics is the art of the possible, not the art of the perfect."

Forty-six Democrats joined 200 Republicans to pass the bill in the House. Despite the extended deadlines for smog reduction, energy producers contend the legislation will be environmentally effective.

"Some of the critics have suggested that any extension of a deadline must inherently be bad, when in fact the whole purpose of providing this flexibility is to ensure that this puts an end to finger-pointing and controversy impeding air quality progress," said Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Washington-based Edison Electric Institute, which represents companies that generate 70 percent of the nation's electricity.

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn, blasted the energy bill for containing a number of provisions that would shield polluters from liability and for doing little to promote the use of alternative and renewable fuels.

"Republicans are attempting to jam an energy bill through Congress that is better suited to meet the energy needs of the 19th century, not the 21st," Dodd said in a statement.

A number of Senate Democrats and Republicans have threatened to use a filibuster to prevent the bill from coming to a vote this week, but it is unclear whether they can muster enough support to sustain it. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D.-Conn., called the measure "another giveaway to special interests" and said he would support a filibuster.