AIR POLLUTION, EARTHQUAKES ETC.: 
CLEAN AIR:  IN THE NORTHEAST, AN OXYMORON?



WARNING:  cut % paste!  EPA head Jackson, shoots a look to Sunstein.

E.P.A. Issues Limits on Mercury Emissions
By JOHN M. BRODER, NYTIMES
December 21, 2011, 2:00 pm

The Environmental Protection Agency introduced new standards on Wednesday sharply limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from the nation’s 1,400 coal- and oil-burning power plants.

If and when the new rule takes effect, it will be the first time the federal government has enforced limits on mercury, arsenic, acid gases and other poisonous and carcinogenic chemicals emitted by the burning of fossil fuels.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said that the regulations, which have taken more than 20 years to formulate, would save thousands of lives and return financial benefits many times their estimated $11 billion annual cost.

“By cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a major victory for clean air and public health – and especially for the health of our children,” Ms. Jackson said.

President Obama, who in September rejected a proposed E.P.A. rule covering smog-causing emissions as too burdensome to industry, said he was fully supportive of the new regulation. He directed the agency to ensure that companies were given sufficient time and flexibility to meet the new rule.

He said the new rule, formally known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, “represents a major step forward in my administration’s efforts to protect public health and the environment.” (The White House released a video in which the president discusses the rules.)

A number of power plant operators are likely to challenge the new rules in court, saying they are too expensive and will force the premature closing of scores of power plants, eliminating hundreds of thousands of jobs and threatening the supply of electricity in some parts of the country.

Scott H. Segal, who represents utilities that will be affected by the new rule, said that the E.P.A. was playing down the costs and double-counting the benefits. “The bottom line,” he said in an analysis of the regulation, “this rule is the most expensive air rule that E.P.A. has ever proposed in terms of direct costs. It is certainly the most extensive intervention into the power market and job market that E.P.A. has ever attempted to implement.”

Environmental advocates challenged Mr. Segal’s analysis, and his views are not universally shared in the power industry. Ralph Izzo, the chief executive of Public Service Enterprise Group, the parent of New Jersey’s largest electric utility, said that his company had spent $1.3 billion to bring his plants into compliance with New Jersey’s air quality rules, which are as stringent as the new federal standard. He said that other utilities had had more than enough notice to clean up their plants in advance of the federal rule announced on Wednesday.

He said the E.P.A. action was “long overdue.” He noted that the Clean Air Act, under which the new standards are issued, gives enough flexibility to allow all power generators to come into compliance without any threat to the reliability of electric supply.

Mercury is a potent neurotoxin, harming the nervous systems of fetuses and young children and causing lifelong developmental problems. Other pollutants covered by the new rule, including dioxin, can cause cancer, premature death, heart disease, and asthma.

Power plants generally will have up to four years to comply, although waivers can be granted in individual cases to ensure that the lights stay on. The E.P.A. estimates that utilities will be forced to retire plants that currently provide less than one-half of 1 percent of the nation’s total generating capacity.

The rule is the first national one to put limits on emissions of mercury and other toxic gases from power plants, although more than a dozen states have already imposed such rules on plants within their borders. The George W. Bush administration proposed a rule covering mercury emissions, but environmental and health groups successfully blocked it in court on the ground that it did not meet the minimum standards of the Clean Air Act.

The new federal rule is not based on simple numbers, like pounds per year or per megawatt-hour, but on a scale based on the performance of other power plants; uncontrolled sources will have to do as well as the best-performing sources do now. The rule, in effect, specifies a group of proven cleanup technologies – such as scrubbers or carbon injection systems – rather than precise emissions goals.

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, vowed to block the new regulation.

“Sadly, this rule isn’t about public health,” he said in a statement. “It is a thinly veiled electricity tax that continues the Obama administration’s war on affordable energy and is the latest in an unprecedented barrage of regulations that make up E.P.A.’s job-killing regulatory agenda.”

The E.P.A. said that when the rules are fully put into effect, they will prevent 90 percent of the mercury in coal burned in power plants from being emitted into the air and reduce 88 percent of acid gas emissions from power plants.

The rule will apply to about 1,400 units that generate electricity by burning coal or oil at 600 separate power plants. (Some have more than one power-generation unit.) About half the coal boilers lack what the E.P.A. calls “advanced pollution control equipment”; some are more than 50 years old.

Other relatively large mercury sources, like medical waste incinerators and municipal waste combusters, are already controlled and have released their emissions by 95 percent, according to the E.P.A. Some of the reduction was from simple steps like ceasing to incinerate batteries.

The E.P.A. estimated that the rules would eliminate “up to 17,000 premature deaths” per year, along with thousands of heart attacks, asthma attacks and emergency room visits.

The impact on the electric system is difficult to quantify, in part because the administration is moving forward on two other major rules affecting power plants, one for plants east of the Rockies that send pollution across state borders, and another governing discharges of warm water. Plant owners may calculate that it is cheaper to build a new plant burning natural gas than to upgrade an old coal-burner.

Susan F. Tierney, a consultant who was an assistant secretary of energy for policy during the Clinton administration and a utility regulator in Massachusetts, said that for plants that were “on the margin” financially, the cross-state rule and the new mercury rule might push them under.

Plants with stronger economics might upgrade to control mercury and other hazardous pollutants, she said, because the water rule was still several years in the future.

Ms. Tierney said the mercury rule was the biggest E.P.A. rule on power plants since the mid-1990s, although other changes could be coming. “Under existing rules, it’s really the next big action-forcing regulation,’’ she said. Eventually, she said, E.P.A. regulation of greenhouse gases could have a broader impact, but that rule is still being written.
Obama Pulls Back Proposal to Tighten Clean Air Rules
NYTIMES
By JOHN M. BRODER
September 2, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is abandoning its plan to immediately tighten air-quality rules nationwide to reduce emissions of smog-causing chemicals after an intense lobbying campaign by industry, which said the new rule would cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs, officials said Friday.

The White House announcement that it was overruling the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to adopt a stricter standard for ground-level ozone came just hours after another dismal jobs reports and in the midst of an intensifying political debate over the impact of federal regulations on job creation. The president is planning a major address next week on new measures to stimulate employment, while Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail have harshly criticized the administration’s environmental and health regulations, which they claim are forcing layoffs and the export of jobs.

The E.P.A. following the recommendation of its scientific advisers, had proposed lowering the so-called ozone standard from that set by the Bush administration to a new stricter standard that would have thrown hundreds of American counties out of compliance with the Clean Air Act. It would have required a major effort by state and local officials, as well as new emissions controls by industries and across the country.

The administration will follow a more lenient Bush administration standard set in 2008 until a scheduled reconsideration of acceptable pollution limits in 2013. Environmental advocates vowed on Friday to challenge that standard in court, saying it is too weak to adequately protect public health. In a statement, the president reiterated his commitment to environmental concerns, but said, “At the same time, I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover. With that in mind, and after careful consideration, I have requested that Administrator Jackson withdraw the draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time.”

In a letter to Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, the head of the White House office of regulatory affairs, Cass Sunstein, said that the president was rejecting her proposal to tighten the standard.

“He has made it clear he does not support finalizing the rule at this time,” Mr. Sunstein said.

Mr. Sunstein said that changing the rule now would create uncertainty for business and local government. He also said there was no compelling reason to rewrite the ozone standard in advance of the scheduled reconsideration in 2013, a key demand of business interests.

Ms. Jackson said in a statement, “This administration has put in place some of the most important standards and safeguards for clean air in U.S. history: the most significant reduction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide air pollution across state borders; a long-overdue proposal to finally cut mercury pollution from power plants; and the first-ever carbon pollution standards for cars and trucks.”

She said her agency would revisit the ozone standard, in compliance with the Clean Air Act.

Mr. Sunstein told Ms. Jackson that since the rule is due for reconsideration in 2013, an earlier review would promote confusion and uncertainty.

“In this light,” he wrote, “issuing a final rule in late 2011 would be problematic in view of the fact that a new assessment, and potentially new standards, will be developed in the relatively near future.”

Environmental advocates expressed dismay at the decision.

League of Conservation Voters President Gene Karpinski issued the following statement:

“The Obama administration is caving to big polluters at the expense of protecting the air we breathe,” Mr. Karpinski said. “This is a huge win for corporate polluters and huge loss for public health.”

Mr. Sunstein said he was carefully scrutinizing regulations across the government to assure that they are cost-efficient and based on the best current science. He said that the E.P.A.’s scientific advisory panel should take a closer look at the most feasible level of ozone pollution consistent with environmental and health protections.

The issue had become a flashpoint between the administration and Republicans in Congress, who held up the proposed ozone rule as a test of the White Houses commitment to regulatory reform and job creation. Imposing the new rule before the 2012 election would have created political problems for the administration and for Democrats nationwide seeking election in a brittle economy.

Leaders of major business groups — including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute and the Business Roundtable — met with Ms. Jackson and with top White House officials earlier this summer seeking to moderate, delay or kill the rule. They told William Daley, the White House chief of staff, that the rule would be very costly to industry and would hurt Mr. Obama’s chances for re-election.

John Engler, the former governor of Michigan and chairman of the Business Roundtable, said that the rule should be reconsidered in 2013, regardless of who is president. But he added that he thought Mr. Obama’s chances of retaining the office would be better if he dropped or delayed the ozone rule.

Representative Eric Cantor, the majority leader, said this week that the House would review the ozone rule, along with a number of other environmental rules that he characterized as “job-killers.” The ozone rule, he said in a memo to Republican members, was one of the most onerous of the Obama administration’s proposed rules.

“This effective ban or restriction on construction and industrial growth for much of America is possibly the most harmful of all the currently anticipated Obama administration regulations,” Mr. Cantor wrote. He said that the impact would be felt across the economy and cost as much as $1 trillion and millions of jobs over the next decade.

The current standard for ozone is 75 parts per billion, set by the Bush administration in 2008 over the objections of E.P.A. scientists, who said that a standard between 60 ppb and 70 ppb was needed to protect public health. Ms. Jackson made clear her intention to follow the scientific advice and set a new, lower standard, by the end of this year. She has told associates that her ability to address this problem would be a reflection of her ability to perform her job.

Ozone, or smog, contributes to a variety of ailments, including heart problems, asthma and other lung disorders.

Obama halts controversial EPA regulation
YAHOO
By DINA CAPPIELLO, JULIE PACE - Associated Press
2 September 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday scrapped his administration's controversial plans to tighten smog rules, bowing to the demands of congressional Republicans and some business leaders.

Obama overruled the Environmental Protection Agency and directed administrator Lisa Jackson to withdraw the proposed regulation to reduce concentrations of smog's main ingredient, in part because of the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and uncertainty for businesses at a time of rampant uncertainty about an unsteady economy.

The announcement came shortly after a new government report on private sector employment showed that businesses essentially added no new jobs last month — and that the jobless rate remained stuck at a historically high 9.1 percent.

The withdrawal of the proposed regulation marks the latest in a string of retreats by Obama in the face of Republican opposition. Last December, he shelved, at least until the end of 2012, his insistence that Bush-era tax cuts should no longer apply to the wealthy. Earlier this year he avoided a government shutdown by agreeing to Republican demands for budget cuts. And this summer he acceded to more than a $1 trillion in spending reductions, with more to come, as the price for an agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, had muted praise for the White House, saying that withdrawal of the smog regulation was a good first step toward removing obstacles that are blocking business growth.

"But it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to stopping Washington Democrats' agenda of tax hikes, more government 'stimulus' spending, and increased regulations, which are all making it harder to create more American jobs," Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said.

Major industry groups had lobbied hard for the White House to abandon the smog regulation, and applauded Friday's decision.

"The president's decision is good news for the economy and Americans looking for work. EPA's proposal would have prevented the very job creation that President Obama has identified as his top priority," said Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.

The withdrawal of the proposed EPA rule comes three days after the White House identified seven such regulations that it said would cost private business at least $1 billion each. The proposed smog standard was estimated to cost anywhere between $19 billion and $90 billion, depending on how strict it would be.

Republican lawmakers have blamed what they see as excessive regulations backed by the Obama administration for some of the country's economic woes, and House Republicans pledged this week to try to block four environmental regulations, including the one on some pollution standards, when they return after Labor Day.

But perhaps more than some of the other regulations under attack, the ground-level ozone standard is most closely associated with public health — something the president said he wouldn't compromise in his regulatory review. Ozone is the main ingredient in smog, which is a powerful lung irritant that occasionally forces cancellation of school recesses, and causes asthma and other lung ailments.

Criticism from environmentalists, a core Obama constituency, was swift following the White House announcement.

"The Obama administration is caving to big polluters at the expense of protecting the air we breathe," said Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters. "This is a huge win for corporate polluters and huge loss for public health."

In his statement, the president said that withdrawing the regulation did not reflect a weakening of his commitment to protecting public health and the environment.

"I will continue to stand with the hardworking men and women at the EPA as they strive every day to hold polluters accountable and protect our families from harmful pollution," he said.

The decision mirrors one made by Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush. EPA scientists had recommended a stricter standard to better protect public health. Bush personally intervened after hearing complaints from electric utilities and other affected industries. His EPA set a standard of 75 parts per billion, stricter than one adopted in 1997, but not as strong as federal scientists said was needed to protect public health.

The EPA under Obama proposed in January 2010 a range for the concentration of ground-level ozone allowed in the air — from 60 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion. That's about equal to a single tennis ball in an Olympic-size swimming pool full of tennis balls.

Jackson, Obama's environmental chief, said at the time that "using the best science to strengthen these standards is a long overdue action that will help millions of Americans breathe easier and live healthier."

Obama has scheduled a primetime speech to a joint session of Congress and the nation next Thursday night to outline plans he has made for combating high joblessness and spurring economic growth.


DEAD?
Star Lake, N.Y. in the Adirondacks - a dying or dead lake the used to be the goldest, clearest water...

E.P.A. Issues Tougher Rules for Power Plants
NYTIMES
By JOHN M. BRODER
July 7, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday issued new standards for power plants in 28 states that would sharply cut emissions of chemicals that have polluted forests, farms, lakes and streams across the Eastern United States for decades.

The agency said the regulations, which will take effect in 2012, would reduce emissions of compounds that cause soot, smog and acid rain from hundreds of power plants by millions of tons at an additional cost to utilities of less than $1 billion a year. The E.P.A. said the cleaner air would prevent as many as 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 nonfatal heart attacks and hundreds of thousands of cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments every year.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said the new rule would improve air quality for 240 million Americans living in states where the pollution is produced or where it travels downwind.

“No community should have to bear the burden of another community’s polluters, or be powerless to prevent air pollution that leads to asthma, heart attacks and other harmful illnesses,” Ms. Jackson said. “This is a long-overdue step to protect the air we breathe.”

The rule, which governs emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from fossil-fuel-burning power plants, does not explicitly aim at carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. Those are covered by other, far more controversial, proposed regulations. But most actions to cut emissions of conventional pollutants also have the indirect effect of reducing global warming gases.

The new regulation, known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, is essentially a rewrite of one issued by the George W. Bush administration in 2005 but invalidated by a federal judge in 2008. The regulation, known popularly as the transport rule because it is directed at emissions that are carried eastward by prevailing winds, is a significant toughening of the acid rain program that was part of amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1990.

The new rule applies to all the states east of the Rockies except the Dakotas, Delaware and the six New England states.

The agency said that utilities could meet the new standards at modest cost by using readily available technology like catalytic converters and smokestack scrubbers. Under some E.P.A. projections, the new rule will create thousands of jobs in pollution-control businesses and significantly increase labor productivity by reducing workdays lost to respiratory and other illnesses.

The utility industry and many Republicans in Congress contend that the new rule, along with other pending E.P.A. air quality regulations, will require the premature closing of dozens of aging coal plants and impose heavy financial burdens on power companies and their customers. They had asked for a more gradual phase-in of the new rules.

“The E.P.A. is ignoring the cumulative economic damage new regulations will cause,” said Steve Miller, president of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a group of coal-burning utilities. “America’s coal-fueled electric industry has been doing its part for the environment and the economy, but our industry needs adequate time to install clean coal technologies to comply with new regulations. Unfortunately, E.P.A. doesn’t seem to care.”

An industry-financed study found that new air pollution rules would cost tens of thousands of jobs and cause electricity rates to rise by more than 20 percent in some parts of the country.

Michael J. Bradley, executive director of the Clean Energy Group, a coalition of power companies, said that most utilities had already installed the equipment needed to meet the new standards and that the small number of plants that would be closed were among the oldest and dirtiest in the nation.

Mr. Bradley said that electricity markets had already factored in the price of compliance and that recent auctions had shown there would be adequate supplies of electricity in 2015 at reasonable prices. “The bottom line is, the industry is well positioned to comply with this, has been anticipating this for three to four years now,” he said.

Supporters of the new rule said any costs would be more than offset by health and other benefits. The E.P.A. estimates the annual benefits of the Cross-State Pollution Rule at $120 billion to $280 billion a year by 2014.

John F. Sheehan of the Adirondack Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the new air quality rule would help the Adirondack Park in upstate New York, the nation’s largest outside of Alaska, to recover from decades of pollution produced far from its borders.

“This is the biggest leap forward in our long history of dealing with this problem,” Mr. Sheehan said. “This is a very deep cut on a very aggressive schedule and essentially enough to end chronic acidification of lakes and ponds in the Adirondacks.”

He said it would allow the regeneration of spruce and fir forests in the six-million-acre park while improving the habitat of dozens of species, from the Bicknell’s thrush at high elevations to brook trout in streams.

E.P.A. Limit on Gases to Pose Risk to Obama and Congress
By JOHN M. BRODER, NYTIMES
December 30, 2010

WASHINGTON — With the federal government set to regulate climate-altering gases from factories and power plants for the first time, the Obama administration and the new Congress are headed for a clash that carries substantial risks for both sides.

While only the first phase of regulation takes effect on Sunday, the administration is on notice that if it moves too far and too fast in trying to curtail the ubiquitous gases that are heating the planet it risks a Congressional backlash that could set back the effort for years.

But the newly muscular Republicans in Congress could also stumble by moving too aggressively to handcuff the Environmental Protection Agency, provoking a popular outcry that they are endangering public health in the service of their well-heeled patrons in industry.

“These are hand grenades, and the pins have been pulled,” said William K. Reilly, administrator of the environmental agency under the first President George Bush.

He said that the agency was wedged between a hostile Congress and the mandates of the law, with little room to maneuver. But he also said that anti-E.P.A. zealots in Congress should realize that the agency was acting on laws that Congress itself passed, many of them by overwhelming bipartisan margins.

President Obama vowed as a candidate that he would put the United States on a path to addressing climate change by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollutants. He offered Congress wide latitude to pass climate change legislation, but held in reserve the threat of E.P.A. regulation if it failed to act. The deeply polarized Senate’s refusal to enact climate change legislation essentially called his bluff.

With Mr. Obama’s hand forced by the mandates of the Clean Air Act and a 2007 Supreme Court decision, his E.P.A. will impose the first regulation of major stationary sources of greenhouse gases starting Jan. 2.

For now, administration officials are treading lightly, fearful of inflaming an already charged atmosphere on the issue and mindful that its stated priorities are job creation and economic recovery. Officials are not seeking a major confrontation over carbon regulation, which offers formidable challenges even in a less stressed economic and political climate.

“If the administration gets it wrong, we’re looking at years of litigation, legislation and public and business outcry,” said a senior administration official who asked not to be identified so as not to provide an easy target for the incoming Republicans. “If we get it right, we’re facing the same thing.”

“Can we get it right?” this official continued. “Or is this just too big a challenge, too complex a legal, scientific, political and regulatory puzzle?”

The immediate effect on utilities, refiners and major manufacturers will be small, with the new rules applying only to those planning to build large new facilities or make major modifications to existing plants. The environmental agency estimates that only 400 such facilities will be affected in each of the first few years of the program. Over the next decade, however, the agency plans to regulate virtually all sources of greenhouse gases, imposing efficiency and emissions requirements on nearly every industry and every region.

Lisa P. Jackson, administrator of the E.P.A., has promised to pursue a measured and moderate course. The agency announced last week that it would not even begin issuing standards for compliance until the middle of 2011, and when it did so the rules would not impose unreasonable costs on industry.

But the reaction in Congress and industry has been outsized, with some likening the E.P.A. to terrorists and others vowing to choke off the agency’s financing for all air-quality regulation. A dozen states have filed suit to halt the new greenhouse gas rules, with one, Texas, flatly refusing to comply with any new orders from Washington.

Two federal courts, including one this week in Louisiana, have refused to issue restraining orders halting the implementation of the new rules. But both left open the possibility of finding the new rules unsupported by federal law.

Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who is set to become chairman of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee, said he was not convinced that greenhouse gases needed to be controlled or that the E.P.A. had the authority to do so.

“This move represents an unconstitutional power grab that will kill millions of jobs — unless Congress steps in,” Mr. Upton wrote this week in a Wall Street Journal opinion essay.

His co-author was Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group financed by Koch Industries and other oil companies that has spread skepticism about global warming and supported many of the Tea Party candidates who will join the new Congress.

Mr. Upton has proposed a moratorium on all global warming regulation until the courts have ruled definitively on the legality of federal action on the issue, decisions that are probably years away.

Others in Congress, including Senator John D. Rockefeller IV and Representative Nick J. Rahall II, both Democrats from West Virginia, have proposed a two-year delay in regulation by the E.P.A. while Congress comes up with its own rules. Virtually no one expects action on climate change legislation in the next Congressional session.

White House officials have said that they will recommend that Mr. Obama veto any measure that restricts the administration’s power to enforce clean air laws.

So the stalemate continues.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the United States are already falling faster than any current legislative or regulatory proposal envisions, because of the recession-driven drop in demand for electricity. Carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector, by far the largest source of total emissions, fell to about 5.4 billion metric tons in 2009, down from 5.8 billion metric tons the year before, and they are likely to fall even further this year. Demand for electricity in 2009 fell by the largest amount in six decades and is almost certain to slip further in 2010.

When demand for power begins to rebound with the economy, emissions are expected to rise more slowly than in the past, in part because utilities are using fuel more efficiently and switching to cleaner-burning natural gas for part of their electricity generation. But such moves will not take the place of the across-the-board reductions in emissions that will be required to meet the administration’s target of a 17 percent reduction in emissions over 2005 levels by 2020.

And it is that broader mandate that has set off such intense opposition from industry and its allies in Congress.

“Early next year we’re going to have a very serious debate on whether the E.P.A. should be allowed to unilaterally go forward and restructure the American economy,” Jack Gerard, the president of the American Petroleum Institute, said in an interview.

“As the president looks to 2012, his message has to be job creation, and this kind of regulation is inconsistent with that,” he said. “The public has a long memory. Anything viewed as hurting the opportunity to create jobs will not be well received.”

Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 31, 2010

An earlier version of this article misstated where one federal court had refused to issue a restraining order. It also twice misstated the number of metric tons of total emissions.

An EPA power grab

By IAIN MURRAY & MARLO LEWIS
Last Updated: 1:20 AM, December 8, 2009
Posted: 12:06 AM, December 8, 2009

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson yesterday an nounced that the EPA has determined that global warming, allegedly caused by mankind's burning of fossil fuels, endangers public health.

The finding paves the way for a huge power grab by EPA bureaucrats -- indeed, more power than even they think they can handle: The likely regulatory cascade will end up with the EPA having complete control over the nation's energy supply and its use.

Large apartment buildings and hospitals would need EPA operating permits to continue running their furnaces. Lawnmowers and aircraft alike would be regulated for fuel economy like automobiles. And as the EPA orders a retooling or even closure of the nation's power plants, electricity prices would skyrocket, and blackouts would become common.

If you wanted to design an anti-stimulus package, you'd be hard-pressed to top this.

The EPA already holds massive power to stop energy projects. It has used its regulatory powers to hold up the construction of new coal, gas, nuclear and even renewable-power plants and electricity-transmission lines around the country. The US Chamber of Commerce's Project No Project Web site details hundreds of energy projects that could be providing many thousands of good jobs, but are now held up by regulatory delay (typically initiated by environmental groups).

Yesterday's finding will much expand those powers. It will trigger a regulatory avalanche that vastly expand the number of activities that require EPA permitting -- fast-food franchises, apartment buildings and hospitals will soon all have to face the same crushing federal bureaucracy that has bedeviled energy firms for years.

Essentially, the EPA's claim that it is obliged to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) as a pollutant will oblige it to impose costly, time-consuming permitting requirements on 1) tens of thousands of previously unregulated small businesses, under the Clean Air Act's Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) pre-construction permitting program, and 2) millions of previously unregulated entities, under the Title V operating-permits program.

The EPA recognizes the danger. It has issued a "tailoring rule" that warns that if PSD and Title V are applied "literally" to CO2 emissions, the permitting programs will crash under their own weight, construction activity will grind to a screeching halt -- and millions of firms will find themselves operating in legal limbo.

Realizing that this would still produce a thunderous political backlash, the EPA wrote the "tailoring rule" to limit its regulation of CO2 to facilities emitting 25,000 tons of gases a year -- even though the Clean Air Act requires it to cover facilities emitting just 250 tons.

That is, the EPA is trying to acquire the extra powers from the endangerment finding, while avoiding the accompanying duty of regulating small businesses.

But this blatant maneuver is unlikely to withstand legal challenge. The EPA will soon be blocking every new construction project you can think of.

The endangerment finding comes at a time when a batch of e-mails leaked from one of the most important climate-science research units in Britain has put the underlying science on which the finding is based under increased scrutiny.

The "Climategate" e-mails indicate likely manipulation of data, a concerted effort to prevent publication of skeptical views in the academic literature and an effort to hide data and methods in order to prevent outside researchers from checking the British scientists' results -- when such checking is the real test of knowledge in science.

The e-mails do not disprove that the world has been warming, or that fossil fuels have something to do with it -- but they do cast doubt on whether the current warming is in any way unusual.

That is an important consideration in deciding whether the current warming endangers human health and welfare. EPA's decision to simply ignore it and press forward with its endangerment finding represents a premature rush to judgment. Thus, the finding is a purely political move.

That is why we at the Competitive Enterprise Institute announced yesterday that we will file suit in federal court to overturn the endangerment finding on the grounds that the EPA has ignored major scientific issues, including but not limited to those raised recently in the Climategate scandal.

But lawmakers shouldn't rely on CEI to save America from the EPA's power grab. Congress should enact legislation, such as that offered by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), to make it plain that the Clean Air Act applies to emissions that directly threaten human health -- not ones that might be tied to climate change.

If Congress doesn't act, today's finding will destroy any hope of economic recovery. Millions of jobless Americans will have the EPA to thank for their misery.



Remember the Olympics August 2008?
Report Sees New Pollution Threat
NYTIMES
By ANDREW JACOBS
November 14, 2008

BEIJING — A noxious cocktail of soot, smog and toxic chemicals is blotting out the sun, fouling the lungs of millions of people and altering weather patterns in large parts of Asia, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations.

The byproduct of automobiles, slash-and-burn agriculture, wood-burning stoves and coal-fired power plants, these plumes of carbon dust rise over southern Africa, the Amazon basin and North America. But they are most pronounced in Asia, where so-called atmospheric brown clouds are dramatically reducing sunlight in many Chinese cities and leading to decreased crop yields in swaths of rural India, say a team of more than a dozen scientists who have been studying the problem since 2002.

But the scientists who worked on the report said the blanket of haze might be mitigating the worst effects of greenhouse gases, by absorbing solar heat or reflecting it away from the earth. Greenhouse gases, by contrast, tend to trap the warmth of the sun and lead to a rise in ocean temperatures.

“All of this points to an even greater and urgent need to take on emissions across the planet,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, in Beijing, which the report identified as one of the world’s most polluted cities, and where the report was released. “The imperative to act has never been clearer.”

The brownish haze, sometimes more than a mile thick and clearly visible from airplanes, stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to the Yellow Sea. During the spring, it sweeps past North and South Korea and Japan. Sometimes the cloud drifts as far east as California.

The report identified 13 cities as brown-cloud hotspots, among them Bangkok, Cairo, New Delhi, Seoul and Tehran.

The report was issued on a day when Beijing’s own famously polluted skies were unusually clear. On Wednesday, by contrast, the capital was shrouded in a thick, throat-stinging haze that is the byproduct of heavy industry, coal-burning home heaters and the 3.5 million cars that clog the city’s roadways.

Last month, the government reintroduced some of the traffic restrictions that were imposed on Beijing during the Olympics; the rules forced private cars to stay off the road one day a week and sidelined 30 percent of government vehicles on any given day. Overall, officials say the new measures have remove 800,000 cars from the roadways.

According to the United Nations report, smog blocks from 10 percent to 25 percent of the sunlight that should be reaching the city’s streets. The report also singled out the southern city of Guangzhou, where soot and dust have dimmed natural light by 20 percent since the 1970s.

Rain can cleanse the skies, but some of the black grime that falls to earth ends up on the surface of the Himalayan glaciers that are the source of water for billions of people in China, India and Pakistan. As a result, the glaciers that feed into the Yangtze, Ganges, Indus and Yellow rivers are absorbing more sunlight and melting more rapidly, researchers say.

According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, these glaciers have shrunk by 5 percent since the 1950s and, at the current rate of retreat, could shrink by another 75 percent by 2050.

“We used to think of this brown cloud as a regional problem, but now we realize its impact is much greater,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, who led the United Nations scientific panel. “When we see the smog one day and not the next, it just means it’s blown somewhere else.”

Although the clouds’ overall impact is not entirely understood, Mr. Ramanathan, a professor of climate and ocean sciences at the University of California, San Diego, said they might be affecting precipitation in parts of India and Southeast Asia, where monsoon rainfall has been decreasing in recent decades, and central China, where devastating floods have become more frequent.

He said that some studies suggest that the plumes of soot that blot out the sun have led to a 5 percent decline in the growth rate of rice harvests across Asia since the 1960s.

For those who breathe the toxic mix, the impact can be deadly. Henning Rodhe, a professor of chemical meteorology at Stockholm University, estimates that 340,000 people in China and India die each year from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases that can be traced to the emissions from coal-burning factories, diesel trucks and kitchen stoves fueled by firewood.

“The impacts on health alone is a reason to reduce these brown clouds,” he said, adding that in China, about 3.6 percent of the nation’s annual gross domestic product, or $82 billion, is lost to the health effects of pollution.

In Big Setback, Court Rejects Clean Air Rules
NYTIMES
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 12, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court unanimously struck down a major component of President Bush’s clean air policies on Friday, effectively delaying further action on reducing smog and soot-producing emissions until the next administration takes office.

Administration Rejects Regulating Emissions (July 11, 2008) North Carolina and some electric power producers opposed aspects of the regulation, known as the Clean Air Interstate Rule, creating a rare instance in which President Bush found himself allied with enviromental advocates.

The act required 28 states, largely on the East Coast, to reduce the pollutants that can travel long distances in the wind, which the Environmental Protection Agency predicted it would prevent about 17,000 premature deaths a year.

”This the rare case where environmental groups went to court alongside the Bush administration,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a group that has criticized other Bush administration policies.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the environmental agency overstepped its authority by instituting the rule. It said the Clean Air Act did not give the E.P.A. the authority to change pollution standards the way it did. Citing ”more than several fatal flaws,” the court scrapped the entire regulation.

”This is without a doubt the worst news of the year when it comes to air pollution,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

The environmental agency said the rule would have drastically reduced sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, saving up to $100 billion in health benefits by preventing tens of thousands of heart attacks millions as well as lost work and school days.

While the Bush administration could appeal the decision, environmental groups called for Congress and the E.P.A. to quickly begin working on a new law or a replacement regulation.

The ruling was somewhat of a surprise, even to industry groups that had challenged aspects of the law. William M. Bumpers, a lawyer representing Entergy Corp., said a few electric companies flatly opposed the regulation but most generally favored it because it included cap-and-trade provisions that allow them to exceed emissions caps to buy credits from those who do.

“The power-generating industry had already invested billions and billions of dollars in anticipation of the trading market,” Mr. Bumpers said. ”They’re not happy with this development.”
Court overturns Bush air pollution rule 
DAY
Posted on Jul 11, 2008 11:45 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court has struck down an environmental rule that the Bush administration championed as crucial in protecting public health.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously rejected the Clean Air Interstate Rule, saying it found several flaws.

Announced in 2005, the regulation required 28 mostly Eastern states to reduce smog-forming and soot-producing emissions. Those chemicals can drift long distances in the wind. The EPA said the regulation would reduce pollution more than any clean air rule in a decade.

Advocacy group Clean Air Watch said the ruling was without a doubt the worst environmental news of the year and called on the Bush administration and Congress to quickly come up with a fix.
Toxins reach remote lands:
DANGEROUS LEVELS: Study finds 20 parks that are contaminated.
Anchorage Daily News
By MATTHEW BROWN, The Associated Press
Published: February 27th, 2008 12:11 AM

BILLINGS, Mont. -- Pesticides, heavy metals and other airborne contaminants are raining down on national parks across the West and into Alaska, turning up at sometimes dangerously high levels in lakes, plants and fish.

A sweeping, six-year federal study released Tuesday found evidence of 70 contaminants in 20 national parks and monuments -- from Denali in Alaska and Glacier in Montana, down to Yosemite in California and Big Bend in Texas.

The findings revealed that some of the Earth's most pristine wilderness is still within reach of the toxic byproducts of the industrial age.

"Contaminants are everywhere. You can't get more remote than these northern parts of Alaska and the high Rockies," said Michael Kent, a fish researcher with Oregon State University who co-authored the study.

The substances detected ranged from mercury produced by power plants and industrial chemicals such as PCBs to the banned insecticides dieldrin and DDT. Those can cause health problems in humans including nervous system damage, dampened immune system responses and lowered reproductive success.

Contaminants that accumulated in fish exceeded human consumption thresholds at all eight parks that were studied the most: Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Gates of the Arctic and Denali national parks and Alaska's Noatak National Preserve.

Also, mercury levels at eight parks and DDT levels at Glacier and Sequoia and Kings Canyon exceeded health thresholds for fish-eating wildlife. Kent said he found airborne contaminants are causing male fish to develop female organs in some parks.

Much of the contamination is thought to have come from overseas -- traveling global air currents from Europe and Asia.

But researchers said they were surprised to find substantial contamination from the local use of legal pesticides, particularly in agricultural areas around Glacier, Rocky Mountain and Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks.

A parks advocacy group called the federal report "a wake-up call" that should mobilize Congress to take a tougher stance on air pollution.

"We can take steps to reduce mercury emissions from power plants, steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming," said Will Hammerquist with the National Parks Conservation Association.

The $6 million study is known as the Western Airborne Contaminants Assessment Project. It is the most comprehensive to date on the distribution and concentration of contaminants outside developed areas, according to the project's scientific director, Dixon Landers with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that remoteness means less pollution, Landers said many of the parks -- particularly those at higher elevations and in colder climates -- actually are at higher risk.

Mercury from power plants in China, for example, is borne across the Pacific in clouds that rise up when they hit West Coast mountains. That causes the mercury to drop out of the clouds attached to rain droplets or snowflakes.

Over time, as the contaminants re-enter the atmosphere and then rain down again, they "hop-scotch" their way to higher elevations.

The study also included researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Forest Service.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The study at a glance

The study primarily examined three areas in Alaska:

• Denali National Park & Preserve, Wonder and McLeod lakes.

• Gates of the Arctic National Park & Preserve in the Brooks Range, Matcharak Lake.

• Noatak National Preserve near Kotzebue, Burial Lake.

The study found measurable concentration of contaminants in lake trout. Trout is a relatively long-lived fish species at the top of the food web, so mercury and other toxins are more likely to be found in them. They also are not eaten in great quantities by sport or subsistence fishermen, the Park Service said.

At Burial Lake, the average mercury concentration in lake trout was the highest among the parks studied.
School principal dies from Legionnaires' disease
DAY
Oct 3, 10:06 PM EDT

WEST HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell on Tuesday told state health officials to seek help from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in investigating two cases of Legionnaires' disease in West Haven, one of them fatal.

Howard Reed, 56, of West Haven, the principal at Garfield Elementary School in Bridgeport, died late Monday from the disease, the Connecticut Post reported. His son went to the school Tuesday morning to break the news.

"I felt this overwhelming responsibility for my dad to go to each classroom," Matthew Reed said. "I always heard he was in every classroom two to three times a day. I kind of wanted to take that walk that he would. It was important that I could do that for my dad."

Howard Reed died at Yale-New Haven Hospital, a week after he was diagnosed with the disease, a bacterial respiratory illness spread through air from a soil or water source. State health officials say there are 15 to 35 cases of Legionnaires' disease in Connecticut each year, and at least six people have died this year.
      
Rell said she was calling for federal help because it is important to find the source as quickly as possible to prevent more cases.

"Legionnaires' disease is not passed from person to person," Rell said, "but if there is a common source of contamination it needs to be rapidly identified and any necessary precautions need to be taken."

Dr. J. Robert Galvin, commissioner of the state Department of Public Health, said his agency is trying to determine whether the two cases are related. The other person who contracted the disease has been hospitalized. That person has not been identified.

Galvin said health officials have intensified surveillance of new cases of the disease. He said state health officials have briefed the CDC, which is providing its expertise.

Galvin said it was unusual for one town to have two cases of Legionnaires' disease at the same time.

Services for Reed are planned for Saturday in Milford.

It was not clear how Reed, a cancer survivor, contracted the disease.  State health officials told the Post last week that there was no reason to inspect Garfield School, which remains open. Parents have been advised that the school is safe.

Winter 'inversion' leads to air quality warning
Stamford ADVOCATE
By Tim Stelloh, Staff Writer
Published January 10 2008

Most people probably wouldn't associate bad air quality with winter.

But earlier this week, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued statewide warnings for "sensitive" groups such as the elderly, children and those with respiratory problems, because soot levels exceeded federal standards.

Unlike smog, or ozone pollution, which tends to increase on hot days, this week's spike had little to do with the spring-like weather, said Jude Catalano, a DEP air pollution control engineer.

It has to do with a phenomenon in which little wind leads to increased pollution near the earth's surface.

"In the winter, you get 'inversions' in the mornings and evenings. There's very little mixing of air," Catalano said. "It's like a cap that holds the pollution in closer to the ground level."

Monday, warnings were issued for most of the state's larger cities, including Stamford, New Haven and Waterbury, after officials found more than 35 micrograms of soot for every cubic meter of air measured within 24 hours in those areas, Catalano said.

Fine particle pollution can come from diesel exhaust, power plants and commercial boilers, among other things.

Tuesday, warnings were issued for Fairfield County's larger cities. Yesterday, as southerly winds picked up, the warning was called off, Catalano said.

Soot levels typically are 12 or 13 micrograms, though every winter for the last several years particulate levels spiked a half-dozen times from December to February, he said.

Federal levels used to limit the amount of soot measured in a 24-hour period to 65 micrograms for every cubic meter of air. In 2006, it was reduced to 35 micrograms.

The pollutants - which are a fraction of the size of a human hair and can be inhaled more easily than larger particle pollutants - have been associated with several health problems, including asthma in children, increased heart problems among the elderly and lung problems among young healthy adults, according to the American Lung Association.

A 2007 association report gave Fairfield County an "F" for its soot pollution.

"Connecticut has some of the most unhealthy air in the nation," said Margaret LaCroix, an association spokeswoman. "And Fairfield County is typically the worst."


Company shelves plans for "clean coal" power plant
DAY
Nov 28, 3:15 PM EST

MONTVILLE, Conn. (AP) -- A New Jersey-based power company said Tuesday that it will move ahead with its plans to build a natural gas-fired electricity generating plant in Montville, but has temporarily removed a "clean coal" component from the project.

NRG will build the $1.6 billion power plant so that the coal technology part can be added at a later date, said Ray Long, Northeast region director for the company said.

During the past year, NRG had proposed the "clean coal" plant as a way to use a cheap domestic source of fuel to produce electricity for 500,000 or more average-size homes while greatly reducing the effect on the environment.

NRG officials said they had to remove the "clean coal" portion from the final financial bids to be submitted next month because the company would not be able to meet a 2010 deadline set by the Department of Public Utility Control, among other reasons.
 
Long said NRG could have the coal technology portion built by 2013. He said the company had to modify its bids to meet DPUC specifications for the planned 630-megawatt plant.

The DPUC will soon be choosing a series of projects to receive state incentives designed to stimulate the construction of new power plants.

Environmental groups were already fighting the proposed Montville plant, saying the new coal technology still produces carbon dioxide, which, unless captured, contributes to global warming. The technology to capture the gas is still being developed.
NRG Energy On Environmental Groups' 2006 'Dirty Dozen' List;  Montville company calls criticism 'misinformed'
DAY
By Patricia Daddona
Published on 11/28/2006

State and local environmental groups have awarded NRG Energy Inc. in Montville and 11 other New England firms and agencies its 2006 “Dirty Dozen” prize for “threatening the environment.”

NRG owns and operates two gas- and oil-burning power plants in Montville, and proposes to replace them with a $1.5 billion combined-cycle natural gas facility. The facility could eventually be converted into a 630-megawatt “integrated gasification” combined cycle, or IGCC, plant that runs on coal.

On Monday, activists criticized the plan to build a gas plant first, calling it a “classic bait- and-switch” tactic, and awarded NRG a certificate with the “Dirty Dozen” label. But NRG maintains it can't build the cleaner coal plant fast enough to meet Connecticut's voracious energy needs.

If built, the converted plant would turn coal into a cleaner synthetic gas. With such a plant, most of the carbon dioxide emitted would be captured using advanced technology before it enters the atmosphere.

Sylvia Broude, a community organizer for the Toxics Action Center, a New England nonprofit watchdog, stood in front of the NRG property on Lathrop Road Monday with members of the Sierra Club, Clean Water Action and New London County Earth Day. Douglas Wray of the Earth Day group held a poster labeling the NRG proposal a “Trojan horse.”

Broude said NRG was using cleaner gas power as a lure for the less proven new coal plant.

“There's nothing clean about coal,” said Broude. “NRG needs to know that Connecticut residents are not fooled by this classic bait and switch.”

NRG decided to build a natural gas facility first, instead of an IGCC plant, because the state Department of Public Utility Control, which is seeking bids on new or revamped power generation, has found the state will need new plants in place by 2010 or 2011, said Ray Long, director for the company's Northeast Region.

“We don't believe we could get an IGCC plant built until about 2013,” said Long. “That effectively took that proposal off the table. What made the most sense to us was to bid a combined cycle plant and run it off of natural gas. It gives the state the option to come back and seek out coal power at a later time.”

The DPUC, the state's utility regulator, hired a consultant to assess state needs and design a bidding process for new generators. That consultant, London Economics, determined that as much as 312 more megawatts are needed in Connecticut next year “due to immediate deficiencies in supply.”

NRG could place a bid for its proposal on Dec. 13, along with 19 other bidders who have submitted qualifications to bid with the DPUC. Most of the data submitted so far, as well as the bids in December, are or will be confidential.

The DPUC plans to award bids early next year.

According to Broude and Roger Smith, a campaign director with the group Clean Water Action of Hartford, the converted coal facility, if built, would produce 5 million tons of carbon dioxide and 100 pounds of mercury. Even if most emissions were captured, small amounts of mercury would accumulate in water and soil and pose health risks to women of childbearing age, they said.

They would like to see environmentally cleaner options like wind and solar power or fuel cells, they said.

Long argues that the IGCC plant is the best technology available today because 65 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions are captured, which makes its emissions rate comparable to that of a natural gas plant. More than 90 percent of the mercury is removed, he added.

The gas and, possibly, IGCC plant together would “ultimately ... displace other older plants in the state that are mercury emitters, so the emissions are going to be driven down by the new plants,” Long said.

He declined to say how much the natural gas combined cycle plant would cost.

Other “Dirty 12” awards went to T.F. Greene Airport in Warwick, R.I.; Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vt.; the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the Environmental Protection Agency in Albany and New York City, and several other companies from Maine to Massachusetts.
 
Decision a boost for cleaner air in Connecticut
Norwalk HOUR editorial
August 21, 2006

Connecticut, along with other Northeastern states, has won a significant victory for cleaning up the air that travels our way, propelled by the jet stream.
The pollution that spews over this state and our neighbors is generated by coal-burning power plants in the Midwest.

We can thank the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago for this important step in cleaning up the atmosphere.

At stake are the efforts of the Northeastern states to force power plants to install better pollution controls to cut down the emissions that contribute to acid rain — the cause of environmental damages to our lakes.  Add to this the impact the airborne pollution has on young children who suffer daily asthma attacks and you have some idea of the ruling's significance.

We are aware of the strength of the coal lobby and its extensive television ad campaign selling the idea of cleaner-burning coal. That sounds like an oxymoron to us.
The crux of the state's argument will force the power plants to take yearly measurements of pollution rather than hourly ones as sought by the generating plant operators.
Hourly tests, according to the experts, would allow plants to operate no dirtier but more frequently, creating more pollution.

There is, of course, a caveat here. Given the resources of the coal and energy industries, you can bet the farm that this will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
State Joins Pollution Compact
December 16, 2005
By MARK PAZNIOKAS, Courant Staff Writer

Gov. M. Jodi Rell agreed Thursday to enroll Connecticut in a regional plan to reduce greenhouse gases.  Connecticut is expected to be one of seven Northeastern states signing on to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which sets goals for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants beginning in 2009.
 
"The agreement creates incentives that will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and help free our economy from the price volatility of world oil and gas markets," Rell said.  After years of negotiation, Thursday was the deadline for committing to the regional compact.

Some environmentalists had feared that Rell might join fellow Republican governors in Massachusetts and Rhode Island by backing away from a tentative deal intended to encourage utilities to shift to cleaner-burning plants.  Gov. Don Carcieri of Rhode Island and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts each raised concerns that the plan could drive up electricity rates. Romney had sought a cap on what power plants would have to pay if they exceeded emissions limits.

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal told The Associated Press that Rhode Island wants more time to review the plan's impact on energy prices.  But Rell said she was satisfied the agreement is structured to protect consumers from major increases in energy costs.

"We worked hard to make sure there are not unacceptable cost implications," said Gina McCarthy, the environmental protection commissioner, who represented Connecticut in the talks.  The formal plan has yet to be released, but a draft proposal requires a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Utilities that exceed the goals could sell credits to companies that do not.

The market approach "has been a very effective tool that's been used in our air programs over a decade," McCarthy said.  The other states expected in the plan are Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.  The plan is the latest effort in the Northeast to reduce air pollution.

The New England governors and Eastern Canadian premiers pledged in 2001 to reduce greenhouse gases.  The New England Climate Coalition has graded the six states and five provinces on their progress. Connecticut's grade this year was a B, the highest mark given to any of the states. 
Counties told to clean up polluted air
By Hoa Nguyen, Greenwich TIME
January 10, 2005

Fairfield and New Haven counties, which federal officials said have the most polluted air in New England, must work with nearby New York and New Jersey counties on ways to clean up the region's air pollution.

Fairfield and New Haven counties, 10 counties in northern New Jersey and New York City's five boroughs and Orange, Westchester, Rockland, Nassau and Suffolk counties together violate air quality standards for fine-particle pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's final December finding requires the state to submit a pollution reduction plan by 2008. Efforts by Connecticut officials to appeal the EPA's decision so far have been unsuccessful.  The finding "essentially sets an obligation for Connecticut to work with New York and New Jersey," said David Conroy, the EPA's manager of air quality planning for this region.

High concentrations of fine particles are unhealthy, especially for people with heart, respiratory and lung diseases. Studies have linked particle pollution with asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer and strokes, according to the American Lung Association.  Airborne particles and drop-lets come from cars and trucks, open burning of waste, wildfires, fireplaces, cooking, dust from roads and construction, agricultural operations and coal- and oil-burning boilers, according to the EPA.

In Fairfield County, air quality actually meets EPA standards set in 1997, which say that concentrations of particles as small as 2.5 microns in diameter -- or about 30 times smaller than human hair -- must not exceed 15 micrograms per cubic meter.  In Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk, the annual average of particulate matter hover around 13 micrograms per cubic meter, according to the EPA.

"It's meeting EPA's current standard but you know it's still high,'' Conroy said. "Fairfield County as well as New Haven County probably has some of the most elevated levels in New England."

Fairfield County's pollution levels and contribution to the traffic that enters New York City means that the area is part of a regional problem and should join the effort to collectively improve air quality, Conroy said.  In New York City, some monitors exceeded EPA standards by registering particulate matter between 15 and 17 micrograms per cubic meter.

But it's unclear what Connecticut could do to lower New York's readings, said Michael Geigert, a member of the state Department of Environmental Protection's air management bureau, which will help prepare the state's pollution reduction plan.

"The question we might have is what can Connecticut do to reduce levels in New York City," he said.

Although Connecticut won't be on the hook for a specific reduction in particulate matter concentrations, it will be asked to work with officials from the other states and to present programs in its own state to reduce air pollution, Conroy said.  Given the high volume of traffic in and out of New York City, reductions in motor vehicle emissions and diesel engine operations should be one of the things Connecticut considers, he said.

"There's challenges to developing a plan where you have multiple states involved, but EPA will be setting forth guidance," Conroy said. "We intend to give the states flexibility to implement programs that make sense given their contribution to the problem."

Once the plans are submitted in 2008, states will have until 2010 to bring particulate matter concentrations in line with standards.


Several schools raise concerns over artificial turfs
Danbury News-Times
Associated Press
September 17, 2007

STAMFORD -- Some critics of modern technology that is being used to replace natural grass with synthetic turf on athletic fields around Connecticut are calling for a moratorium until more scientific study is done.

Some people believe there are potential environmental and health risks because the material used as cushioning in the fields — ground-up rubber tires — may release harmful chemicals.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has called for $200,000 in state funding for further research after the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven released results of a study of the materials, known as tire crumbs.

The study, which was funded with a $2,000 grant by New Haven-based Environment and Human Health Inc., found that under laboratory conditions, the crumbs released at least four compounds under slightly elevated temperatures that can irritate eyes, skin and mucous membranes.

However, the lead author of the study says the work shows that additional studies are needed, since their testing was done in the lab, not out in the field.

"What we feel this work suggests is additional studies need to be done at actual installed fields," Mary Jane Mattina said. There are a lot of these fields being installed and the answers to these questions aren't out there."

Nancy Alderman, Environment and Human Health's president, said the results of the Connecticut study show enough information to halt the installation of new fields, at least until more work is done.

Rick Doyle, president of the Synthetic Turf Council, an industry group based in Atlanta, cited various studies, including one by FIFA, the international governing body for soccer, that have not found harmful health effects from the fields.

"If Connecticut feels it needs to look at it another time, it's up to them," Doyle said.

Blumenthal, who advocates further study, said there should not be a rush to stop using or installing the fields.

"I can understand the confusion and doubt because we don't have all of the answers," Blumenthal said. "I'm simply trying to be completely honest, as a non-scientist and a non-technician, in digesting what I've read and heard from experts, which is that there are several points of view."

An Earthquake Rattles the Midwest
NYTIMES
By Patrick J. Lyons
April 18, 2008,  9:43 am

People don’t often think of Illinois and California as two peas in a pod, whether culturally, politically, economically or demographically. But a rattling reminder came early this morning that deep down below the surface (say, six miles deep), they do have something big in common geologically: Both states are earthquake country.

At 4:36 a.m. Central daylight time, a quake of magnitude 5.2 (revised from an initial 5.4) struck the southeastern part of the state, centered five miles from Bellmont, a tiny farm town close to the Wabash River, which marks the border with Indiana.

For a quake that has not so far yielded any reports of injury or significant damage, it sure was felt far and wide: The Associated Press says it was felt as far away as Milwaukee and Cincinnati, and that skyscrapers in Chicago and Indianapolis were set to shimmying (that’s good news, compared to cracking and crumbling). An early morning radio host all the way over in Des Moines reported feeling her desk chair roll and shake beneath her. Even Grand Rapids, Mich., noticed the rumble.

The epicenter lies near the edge of a mid-American hot spot for earthquake activity stretching down the Mississippi valley from southern Illinois to northeast Arkansas. The zone doesn’t produce nearly as many noticeable earthquakes as the fault complex running down the West Coast, and in the popular mind, California has owned the Earthquake Country brand at least since San Francisco famously crashed and burned in 1906. (Odd coincidence: That one was on April 18, too.)

But the tectonic forces grinding and snapping away deep in the planet’s crust tend to do their thing without much reference to the public relations implications, and once in a while bring the unwary up short. A quake only one notch stronger in magnitude — a 5.3 — toppled chimneys, cracked plaster and broke windows across southern Illinois in 1968.

And a Big One is hardly out of the question: The fault running up the Wabash Valley that scientists are initially thinking may have been responsible for this morning’s temblor is part of the same system that produced two of the three strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the Lower 48: The New Madrid, Mo., quakes of December 1811 and February 1812, each thought to have been magnitude 8 or greater. (The strongest was a magnitude-9 whopper in the Pacific Northwest in January 1700, known mainly by the tsunami it created that lashed Japan.)

Update | Noon Eastern time

As many people are pointing out in the comment thread below, a second shock struck in almost the same location at 10:14 a.m. Central time. This one was somewhat weaker — 4.6 magnitude — but was still felt over a wide area. Many smaller aftershocks have also been recorded.

On the damage front, the Associated Press has word of a collapsed porch on a house in Mount Carmel and some fallen masonry in West Salem, but no reports of injuries. That’s about what you’d expect from a quake of this size.

Update | 5:00 p.m. Eastern

Thanks to the scores of people who shared their experiences in the comment thread, and to those who pointed out that an earlier version of this post referred incorrectly to Mount Carmel, Ill., as New Carmel.
More reports of building damage have been picked up by the news wires, mainly cracking masonry and the like, including an apartment building in Mount Carmel that had to be evacuated and a building in Louisville, Ky., that dropped a bunch of bricks on the surrounding pavement. Inspectors have been out checking bridges, power plants and other large structures to make sure nothing important shook loose, so far with happily negative results, the Associated Press reports.