EPA dropping cases as Clean Air Act enforcement curtailed

By Elizabeth Shogren
Los Angeles Times

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The Bush administration had said it would vigorously pursue the enforcement actions, which were launched by the Clinton administration.

However, the Bush administration recently eased a provision of the Clean Air Act that requires companies to install modern pollution controls when they build new plants or expand or modernize old ones. Under the new policy, the alleged release of pollution that sparked the enforcement would be legal.

Top Bush administration officials had said for months that the new rules would apply only prospectively — that past violations still would be pursued. But EPA officials told regional enforcement officials in a meeting in Seattle on Tuesday night and in a conference call yesterday morning that the agency no longer would pursue cases of past violations under the old rule.

EPA attorneys were surprised by the change in policy.

"Up until now, people were saying it's business as usual," said one EPA attorney who participated in the conference call. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified.

The only violations that definitely will be prosecuted are seven pending cases against electric utilities.

"This confirms my worst fears," said Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt. "First the administration weakens our clean-air law, and now it won't enforce it."

The announcement provides a tangible example of the effect of the Bush administration's efforts to ease environmental regulations, environmental activists said.

The plan would allow companies to spend as much as 20 percent of the cost of a polluting unit on repairing and modernizing it before they would be required to install new pollution controls.

Environmentalists said EPA's decisions would result in dirtier air for decades to come.

"It's like our worst nightmare," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of Clean Air Trust, an environmental research group. "They're taking the enforcement cop off the beat."

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