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EPA
ORDERS CUTS TO SULFUR- & NITROGEN-BASED AIR POLLUTION SUFFICIENT
TO STOP THE ADIRONDACK PARK'S ACID RAIN PROBLEMS
For more information:
John F. Sheehan
518-432-1770 (ofc)
518-441-1340 (cell)
518-489-4186 (home)
Released, Thursday,
December 4, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C.
- The Adirondack Council today praised the US Environmental Protection
Agency's decision to impose new rules for electric power plants
that will require cuts in sulfur- and nitrogen-based air pollution
deep enough to stop acid rain.
"This is the best news we've seen on acid rain since the
Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990," said Adirondack Council
Executive Director Brian L. Houseal.
"The cuts are deep and the timelines are pretty good. We
have been working with Congress for a decade to gain approval
for a bill that would stop acid rain. EPA's new orders require
power plants east of the Mississippi River to cut their emissions
deeply enough to solve our acid rain problems forever.
"The Administration's proposal is similar to the bill proposed
by late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Senator Charles Schumer
and Senator Hillary Clinton on behalf of the Adirondacks and
New York State," he said. "And the schedule is three
years faster than the Clear Skies Act proposed by Senators Inhofe
of Oklahoma and Voinovich of Ohio. The Adirondack Council testified
before the Senate in April, requesting shorter timelines for
the pollution reductions."
The new Interstate Air Quality rule announced today by EPA would:
- Accomplish the
cuts needed to stop acid rain damage in the Adirondacks by 2010.
- Accomplish the
remainder of the cuts, which will accelerate the Park's recovery,
by 2015.
- Cut sulfur dioxide
pollution from electric power plants by nearly 70 percent.
- Cut nitrogen
oxide pollution from electric power plants by nearly 70 percent.
- Establish permanent
pollution caps, allowing no future increases in either pollutant.
"The plan
is nearly identical to the legislation currently proposed by
our two Adirondack Congressmen, John Sweeney and John McHugh,"
Houseal said. "EPA Administrator Leavitt's plan is better
than we had hoped. I think a lot of people were surprised by
the strength of this plan. The President has kept his promise
to end acid rain in the Adirondacks."
However, Houseal said the Adirondack Council would continue to
push Congress to enact legislation.
"The only weakness in ordering these cuts administratively
is that they are not lawsuit-proof," said Houseal. "If
the level of cuts announced today were approved by Congress and
incorporated into the Clean Air Act, it would be much harder
for anyone to delay them by filing a lawsuit.
"But Congress has been deadlocked on clean air issues for
so long, it is a welcome change to see the decisive action to
bring our acid rain problems to an end," he explained. "The
sooner we start making these cuts, the sooner our lakes and forests
will recover from decades of damage."
As a result of decades of acid rain, more than 500 of the Adirondack
Park's 2,800 lakes and ponds are too acidic to support their
native life. Thousands of acres of high-elevation red spruce
and fir forests have been wiped out and acid-rain-cause mercury
contamination has been documented in more than 20 Adirondack
lakes, making the fish unfit to eat.
The Adirondack Council's mission is to ensure the ecological
integrity and wild character of the Adirondack Park. Founded
in 1975, the Adirondack Council is an 18,000-member, privately
funded, not-for-profit organization with offices in Elizabethtown
and Albany.
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