Senators Have It Backwards on New Source Review; NCPA Experts Argue EPA Regulation Encourages the Use of Older, Dirtier Power Plants 5/18/2004
From: Sean Tuffnell of the National Center for Policy Analysis, 800-859-1154 or stuffnell@ncpa.org DALLAS, May 18 -- Ten U.S. Senators filed a legal brief today charging the Bush Administration with illegally overhauling air pollution regulations last year to favor energy producers. The brief charges that the administration's changes to the New Source Review (NSR) permitting program will indefinitely extend the grace period for polluters under the Clean Air Act. Yet according to scholars with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the NSR program actually encourages the continued use of older, dirtier technologies and facilities. "The Senators are correct when they assert the Bush administration's change will likely make it more difficult to trigger NSR when a plant makes a modification," said NCPA Adjunct Scholar Joel Schwartz, who is also a Visiting Scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. "But they are wrong when they assert this will lead to more pollution. NSR actually encourages the continued operation of older, dirtier power plants." According to Schwartz, NSR artificially increases the cost of new or overhauled plants relative to existing ones, encouraging businesses to put their investments into keeping old plants running well past their nominal useful lives. The Senator's brief is being filed as part of a multi-state lawsuit against the administration that contends the changes will result in increased air pollution in Northeastern states. "If you want to reduce industrial pollution, then address the problem directly: enforce a declining overall cap on allowable pollution, and don't worry about whether plants are new or old or where the pollution reductions come from," suggested Schwartz. For example, the Clean Air Act's Title IV sulfur dioxide cap- and-trade program reduced SO2 emissions from power plants by 35 percent between 1990 and 2002, and it did it for less than one- seventh the cost of NSR and other command-and-control regulations. "If we want to continue to reduce SO2, than the best way to get there is to simply lower the cap even further," said Schwartz. "Where NSR discourages pollution reductions by greatly extending the life of industrial plants, cap-and-trade allows policymakers to determine with certainty both the amount of pollution reductions and the schedule on which those reductions occur, and it does so at a fraction of the cost." ------ The NCPA is an internationally known nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute with offices in Dallas and Washington, D. C. that advocates private solutions to public policy problems. We depend on the contributions of individuals, corporations and foundations that share our mission. The NCPA accepts no government grants. |