The regulations, called New Source Review, detail the procedures to follow when a power company or refinery creates a pollution source or modifies an existing one.

In a prepared statement, EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said the agency will "put forward an ambitious proposal that will reduce air pollution from power plants significantly more than the existing system. Subsequently, we will release the NSR report called for by the national energy policy." The comprehensive plan would address sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and mercury emissions.

In May, President George Bush directed the agency to review NSR regulations, which are part of the Clean Air Act. The power and refining industries have lobbied hard for changes in the guidelines, saying routine maintenance has become burdensome as a result of the regulations. Environmental groups and some state officials say industry claims are bogus and part of an attempt to gut the Clean Air Act.

Opponents of any regulation-tinkering say spending tens of millions of dollars from capital budgets, extending plant life by decades, is not routine maintenance. Furthermore, critics of any changes say many of the plants wind up operating more and emitting more pollutants, regardless of what new equipment is installed.

Scott Segal, spokesman for the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a lobbying group for power and refining companies, told United Press International the current NSR interpretation "blurs the distinction between applying the act to routine maintenance activities and applying it to major changes at existing facilities. If you apply the full force of the Clean Air Act to every instance of routine maintenance, the result would be perpetual enforcement actions against electric generating units." Critics of this argument say that the Clean Air Act clearly distinguishes between routine maintenance and major modifications.

An EPA official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, denied NSR would be weakened. "We are looking, from our perspective, that the New Source Review program continues to achieve the same environmental benefit or protection after any changes we might consider. We're not looking to 'relax' anything or roll back anything.

"What we're looking to do maybe, if it looks necessary, (is) to address some of the concerns that are currently affecting industry, but with guaranteeing the same environmental protection. Give them more flexibility maybe, but still ensure that we get the protection that was envisioned by the New Source Review program," the official said.

Whitman's statement indicated some form of industrywide emissions cap would be put in place, and companies would be allowed to trade emissions, with dirty plants buying credits from cleaner ones. The statement cited "the Clean Air Act's acid rain 'cap and trade' program, which is widely recognized as the most successful air pollution control program in the world."

John Walke, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former EPA lawyer, was skeptical about the administration's claims of success by capping nationwide emissions and allowing companies to trade emissions.

"The history would suggest the opposite," Walke told UPI. "The acid rain program was adopted on top of existing Clean Air Act programs because everyone recognized that the acid rain program would serve a useful but limited purpose. No one pretended it would accomplish what the New Source Review program and these host of other programs are designed to accomplish."

Walke said the administration is claiming that adopting a cap and trade program would allow the removal of programs focused more on direct local effects. "We don't believe a cap and trade program can fully replace or serve (the same purpose)," Walke said.

Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group that has battled against any weakening of New Source Review, told UPI he believed the delay was a response to public concerns. "(The) decision reflects the enormous outcry that the administration has received from the public on the direction they seemed to be headed, which was gutting the New Source Review provisions of the (Clean Air) Act directed at grandfathered plants."

But Cohen sees risks. "The way it's been formulated by Administrator Whitman ... the administration is proposing, as part of a single package, to unilaterally review, revise or scale back public-health protections that are contained in current public health law and regulation in return for a proposal for further public health protections in a future law. The problem with that is that the president and the EPA do not have the power to assure what Congress will do with that proposal," Cohen said.

The Clean Air Task Force commissioned a study by Abt Associates, a consulting group also used by the EPA. The study concluded that pollution from 51 plants targeted for legal action under the NSR "shortens the lives of, at a minimum, 5,500 people and as many as 9,000 people a year," and leads to between 107,000 and 170,000 asthma attacks annually. An EPA official told UPI that EPA did not agree with all the assumptions of the Abt report.

Weakening NSR would eviscerate the Clean Air Act, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in response to Whitman's announcement. "To credit the absurd claims of utility polluters -- about cost and time -- and then to dilute these environmental standards would mark a monumental surrender, a self-inflicted wound for the EPA and an irreparable blow to environmental enforcement," Blumenthal said.

The state is suing power companies in the South and Midwest, claiming their pollution blows into Connecticut and causes death and illness.

During the Clinton administration, lawsuits based on information provided by the EPA were brought by the Department of Justice against 51 power plants and refineries and many cases are still in process. Some legally binding agreements, such as the one between the U.S. government and Dominion Power involving the required installation of more than $1 billion of pollution control equipment, are near completion.

In May, President Bush ordered the Department of Justice to "review existing enforcement actions with regard to New Source Review to ensure that the enforcement actions are consistent with the Clean Air Act and its regulations."

The Department of Justice has vigorously denied published reports that they have slowed down any legal actions. Christine Romano, a Justice spokeswoman, told UPI, "Until there are any changes in the guideline, litigations will proceed as in the past, unless there are some changes in the guideline." Romano said it is not possible to speculate or predict what will happen in the future. "Everything right now is going along as it has been," she said.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.