On last night's Dateline, Stone Phillips interviewed Bruce Buckheit who was until recently head of the air enforcement division at the EPA. Under the Clinton administration, he used the New Source Review rules to get electrical utilities to clean up their emissions. His tactics were working, at least in one case where a Tampa utility invested nearly a billion dollars to upgrade their plants, dramatically reducing dangerous emissions and improving the air quality in Florida. Although costly, the company was able to absorb the costs partly through "increased productivity at his new natural gas plant and company-wide efficiencies".
So naturally when the Bush administration came in, they saw a program that was working and reinforced it. I mean Bush cares about the clean air. He must, right?
Well, not according to the head air enforcement:
Last year, during a visit to one of the nation's largest coal-burning power plants, President Bush announced that New Source Review had been overhauled. The new rule encourages utilities to make improvements to their old plants to increase their efficiency, while relaxing the requirement to add those expensive pollution controls. the change was made in spite of a 2001 memo from former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to Vice President Dick Cheney, warning: "we will pay a terrible political price if we undercut or walk away from the enforcement cases. It will be hard to refute the charge that we are deciding not to enforce the Clean Air Act."
While the energy industry applauded the rule change, more than a dozen state attorneys general appealed it, asking the federal courts to reinstate New Source Review as a necessary enforcement tool. Buckheit says it was the hammer that helped him forge that landmark agreement in Tampa...
Phillips: "What's the biggest enforcement challenge right now when it comes to air pollution?"
Buckheit: "The Bush Administration. An opportunity to reduce pollution just as we saw in Tampa is being foregone."
Phillips: "Are you saying this administration just doesn't care about air pollution?"
Buckheit: "Yes. I'm saying this administration has decided to put the economic interests of the coal fired power plants ahead of the public interests in reducing air pollution."
Phillips: "That's a pretty serious allegation."
Buckheit: "Well, I was the head of the air enforcement division up until a couple weeks ago and I watched it happen."
Before he retired last December, Buckheit was ordered to shut down further New Source Review investigations at other utilities.
Buckheit: "We had several dozen investigations."
Phillips: "Ongoing."
Buckheit: "Ongoing. Strong cases, where I had to tell the regional engineers and lawyers, stop. Put your documents in the box, so that hopefully we can get back to it someday. But otherwise, you know, stop your investigation."
