Waiting to exhale

Members of Congress are rightly balking at Bush administration proposals to rewrite the nation's air-quality rules for power plants and blunt a law that has worked for 28 years.

Skeptical senators and representatives whose constituents live downwind of the plants, often hundreds of miles away, from Maryland to Maine, may keep the legislation bottled up in committee. Last week, they received a boost from the National Academy of Sciences, which issued an interim report that stated the proposed "Clear Skies" language was unlikely to require a greater response than current standards.

Since 1977, regulations known as New Source Review require power plants to install better pollution-control equipment as plants are modernized. Some of the plants seeking exemption were given a pass with the original Clean Air Act, with the expectation they would install new technology when they made big repairs, expanded or modified operations.

Neither the proposed Clear Skies regulations nor an existing Clean Air Interstate Rule the administration wants to invoke is considered as effective. The White House favors a market-based cap and trade program that sets pollution limits and then allows companies that beat those pollution ceilings to receive an emission credit they can sell to companies that do not comply.

The idea is not selling in Congress, and the report by the science panel has emboldened critics.

Sen. James M. Jeffords, I-Vt., told The Los Angeles Times the report was "further proof that the Bush administration has been recklessly tinkering with the Clean Air Act for several years and wants to go even further."

Clear Skies may be bottled up by a tie in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The House is reportedly not willing to bother with it if the Senate won't budge.

Better yet, if the Senate tries to muscle the bill to a vote, there might not be the votes to override a filibuster.

Taking no action on Clear Skies would allow lots of young and old lungs to breathe easier.