Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[phill]

Bullwinkle, fyi:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 — After more than two years of internal deliberation and intense pressure from industry, the Bush administration has settled on a regulation that would allow thousands of older power plants, oil refineries and industrial units to make extensive upgrades without having to install new anti-pollution devices, according to those involved in the deliberations.

The new rule, a draft of which was made available to The New York Times by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, would constitute a sweeping and cost-saving victory for industries, exempting thousands of indus trial plants and refineries from part of the Clean Air Act. The acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency could sign the new rule as soon as next week, administration officials have told utilityrepresentatives.

The exemption would let industrial plants continue to emit hundreds of thousands of tons of pollutants into the atmosphere and could save the companies millions, if not billions, of dollars in pollution equipment costs, evenif they increase the amounts of pollutants they emit.

From this morning's NYT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/22/national/22AIR.html?hp

regards,

phill