White House to Push 'Clear Skies' Legislation

[rodeodance]

and here comes the push for advance the Rep. legislation--

......Clear Skies still faces significant Democratic opposition: Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who serves on an Appropriations panel overseeing the EPA's budget, said in an interview that Clear Skies is "a polluting bill" that is worse than current law. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on energy and air quality, said he would "think long and hard" about whether a cap-and-trade system is appropriate for regulating mercury and nitrogen oxide.

Sens. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) and James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) have filed bills that would go further than Clear Skies by curbing carbon dioxide emissions and achieving steeper and faster reductions in the other three pollutants. Jeffords's bill would curb nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide pollution 75 percent by 2009, for example, while Carper's plan would obtain a 60 percent cut in the two pollutants by 2009.

"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62025-2004Dec13.html?referrer=email"

White House to Push 'Clear Skies' Legislation
EPA Rule Put on Hold as Bush Seeks Bill

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 14, 2004; Page A03


The White House plans to push Congress to retool the nation's air quality laws early next year, according to administration and industry officials.

The move has alarmed environmentalists, who fear that President Bush's "Clear Skies" proposal -- which has not moved in Congress since he unveiled it in 2002 -- would undercut existing federal standards more than the administration's pending plan to revise pollution controls through regulation. .....