EPA Postpones New Smog Rules
For years, state officials complained of the pollution, from smokestacks more than 100 feet high across the Midwest and Ohio Valley, which send smog-causing chemicals into the Northeast, making it more difficult for that region to meet federal air quality requirements.
The EPA more than a year ago approved a petition by eight northeastern states that the federal government require older coal-burning plants from Pennsylvania to as far west as Indiana reduce the amount of smog-causing emissions from their tall smokestacks.
The Environmental Protection Agency is postponing for a year a requirement that scores of coal-burning power plants reduce smog-causing pollution that often drifts from the Midwest and Ohio Valley into the Northeast.
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, in a letter to Congress that litigation over EPA's attempts to reduce Midwest pollution made the delay until May 2004 necessary.
Preferring the reductions be achieved through a separate EPA clean air initiative that requires states * not the federal government * to order the pollution cuts by 2004.
A number of Midwest utilities had requested a postponement of the compliance deadline, originally set for May 2003. An Ohio-based utility, Cinergy, last year told White House officials a yearlong delay could save it $100 million in compliance costs.
"EPA strongly supports addressing ozone transport (problems) through state action," Whitman wrote.
Whitman's argument was that litigation over the EPA's attempts to impose new requirements on the power plants was already effectively delaying the compliance date beyond the 2003 ozone season, which begins in May.
Environmentalists and Northeast air quality officials contend the utilities already are well along toward meeting the tougher requirements and no extension is needed.
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