Another Pollution Rules Rollback

The Washington Post reports today that the Bush Administration has proposed new power plant emissions rules that could allow significantly more pollutants to be spewed into the atmosphere. Reversing a former government policy and adopting the line voiced by the power industry, the revised EPA position would mean that "decisions on whether a plant complies with the regulations after modernization should be based on how much pollution it could potentially emit per hour, rather than the current standard of how much it pollutes annually."

In a nutshell: if a modernized power plant produces less pollution per hour, and was allowed to operate more hours a day, the modernization could result in a net increase in pollutants emitted. This might mean more efficiency (i.e. less pollutants if the hours of operation were held at the same level), and that would be a good thing - but allowing the hours of operation to increase and the overall levels of pollution to rise? Not so much.

As recently as 2002, the government opposed exactly this: in court filings then, the EPA estimated that "an hourly standard would allow eight plants in five states - including Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia - to generate legally as much as 100,000 tons a year of pollutants that would be illegal under the existing New Source Review rule. That equals about a third of their total emissions." But now the EPA's done a complete flip-flop and supports an hourly standard. What gives?

An EPA spokesperson told the Post that the existing rules "are no longer necessary" due to other regulatory initiatives that are supposed to decrease overall pollution emissions by instituting a system under which "less-polluting plants [could] sell credits to dirtier facilities to reach the overall goal" of decreased emissions.

Seems to me that a combination of the two wouldn't be a bad idea. I don't see any reason to change the standard from annual to hourly-based, particularly if it results in a net incease in pollutants. This complete turnaround looks like little more than catering to the power industry at the expense of the environment and public health. If it's not, I'm happy to be corrected, and will gladly revise my position - but I don't expect to have to do that anytime soon.