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Bank Of America Investment President Bush announced today that he had submitted to Congress legislation that he said would reduce most power plant emissions by 70 percent by 2018 using market incentives.

We have heard that President Bush's ''Clear Skies'' proposal is intended to improve air quality across the country. In reality, his programs only clear the way for corporate polluters to continue their destructive practices (''Bush sends 'Clear Skies' pollution plan to Congress, '' News, July 30).

Investment Opportunity Some environmental groups immediately denounced the legislation, whose outlines Mr. Bush first announced in February, as a gift to energy producers and an effort to weaken the 1970 Clean Air Act, a landmark in environmental law that has improved public health and overall air quality.

At issue are two major Bush policies regarding energy production and the environment. One is Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative now awaiting congressional action. The plan aims to cut power plant emissions by 70 percent beginning in the year 2018, reducing the largest pollutant, sulfur dioxide, to 3 million tons that year from 11 million now. Heavy polluters could purchase pollution rights from clean plants. The second policy, Bush's decision this summer to roll back "new source review" rules, control equipment.

Banc Of America Investment Mr. Bush said his "Clear Skies" proposal, which allows energy companies to buy and trade pollution credits, would eliminate emissions that cause smog and acid rain faster than the current rules of the Clean Air Act, an assertion strongly disputed by environmental groups.

awaited "Clear Skies" proposal, which he promises will simplify and strengthen the Clean Air Act without crippling American industry. old Clean Air Act a stronger and more efficient instrument is surely long overdue. But the Bush plan falls well short of the only other credible proposal on the table, a bill sponsored by Senator James Jeffords of Vermont.

Banking Investment "America has made significant progress over the last 30 years in our quest for cleaner air, and we have learned a lot about which approaches work best," Mr. Bush said in a statement.

Bush will continue his push for the "Clear Skies" proposal at the White House on Tuesday by hosting a roundtable discussion of the topic. And officials said Bush's "new source review" rule, though not subject to congressional approval, needs defending.

Investment Solution Strategic "In the next decade alone, Clear Skies will eliminate 35 million more tons of pollution than the current Clean Air Act, bringing cleaner air to millions of Americans," Mr. Bush said. "Clear Skies will also help save our forests, lakes and streams" and "do this through the use of a market-based system that guarantees results while keeping electricity prices affordable."

Lawmakers should use that clout to pressure the Bush administration to level with the public about dangers related to pollution at New York City's ground zero, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ( New York) has asked, and to support a proposal by Sen. John McCain ( Ariz.) to add carbon dioxide to the list of conventional pollutants sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury that the president's Clear Skies initiative proposes to regulate.

Investment Banking Services The president's plan would set caps at power plants for two major pollutants nitrogen oxide, which produces smog, and sulfur dioxide, the source of acid rain. It would also curb the release of mercury. Energy producers that failed to remain within the caps could buy credits from other utilities that had a surplus of credits.

Bank Investment The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set national health-based air quality standards and orders individual states to devise clean-up plans under specific timetables.

Alternative Investment Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust, an environmental group, said Mr. Bush's predictions were based on assumptions that are "dead wrong." Mr. O'Donnell said the proposal was an invitation for companies to avoid cleaning up their plants by resorting to the sort of deceptive bookkeeping now under scrutiny by federal regulators.

Online Investment Services "The timing of this is astonishingly bad, with all the rhetoric about corporate responsibility," he said.

Accompany Essential Investment Mr. O'Donnell said the legislation was the most recent effort by the Bush administration to mollify energy producers. The administration has already signaled its intent to revise a rule that compels power producers to invest in pollution control technology when they upgrade aging plants.

Investment Company That easing of criteria for the rule, known as "new source review," has been championed by utilities, which do not want to pay for costly pollution filters in order to modernize.

Investment Management Solution The president's legislation was submitted in Congress by Representatives Billy Tauzin, Republican of Louisiana, and Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, and is being sponsored in the Senate by Robert C. Smith, Republican of New Hampshire.

Investment Management Services Critics said the legislation faced an uphill battle in Congress and was not likely to be taken up until next year.

Guide Investment Stock Scott Segal, a spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a consortium of power companies, praised the plan and said it could eliminate costly court fights between utilities and regulators.

Investment Manual Solution "Cap and trade programs can go a long way towards making the Clean Air Act more rational," he said. "We look forward to working on appropriate legislation. Clean air is too important to be left to perpetual litigation."

Investment Stock Phil Clapp, the president of the National Environmental Trust, an environmental group, said the proposal embraced the principle that utilities are financially responsible for the pollution they emit. But he criticized language that for the first time would require that cost-benefit analyses of adding pollution controls be done in tandem with studies of the public health.

Essential Investment Solution "This is an outrageous repeal of one of the fundamental elements of the Clean Air Act, which is that public health is a first priority, not polluter profits," Mr. Clapp said.

Citicorp Investment Services In another proposal that drew praise from conservationists, Mr. Bush has called for reducing emissions produced by motorcycles by 50 percent and of recreational motor boats by 80 percent.

Fool Guide Investment Motley By Christopher Marquis
New York Times - 7/30/2002

Topic: Air Pollution

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