There are two stories in today's papers that are absolute must-reads, but could easily get shuffled under the rug with all of the awful carnage in Iraq and down south in and around New Orleans.
The first, in The Post, by Juliet Eilperini is headlined "New Rules Could Allow Power Plants to Pollute More." The new rules that Bush's EPA is calling for would allow plants that "modernize" to pollute more. By "modernize" they mean "operate longer hours." At worst, this means that several plants would be allowed to increase their emissions by a third, or adding "as much as 100,000 tons a year of pollutants that would be illegal under the existing New Source Review rule." The administration, of course, has an explanation for why all this is a good thing, but its reasoning is equally troubling. Here's the deal:
EPA spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said the administration believes the existing power plant rule is no longer necessary because of other regulatory initiatives. She said a newer and different regulation designed to cut pollution from eastern power plants, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, would achieve greater pollution reductions than the New Source Review modernization guidelines.
"We are committed to permanent significant emissions reductions from power plants because what matters is environmental results, and we get far better results under the Bush administration's Clean Air Interstate Rule, which cuts emissions by 70 percent," she said. That rule sets a long-term cap that would cut industry-wide emissions over the next decade and allow less-polluting plants to sell credits to dirtier facilities to reach the overall goal.
So, taken at their word--which isn't credible at all on matters of environmental protection--the administration is claiming "industry wide" emissions reductions, while allowing plants in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia (according to the article), and a handful of other places emit drastically more pollutants into their local environments. First, this is the pinnacle of special interest politics. If you were wondering, this is what those unironic "Friend of Coal" bumper stickers are all about. Second, it represents the apothesis of "not in my backyard" legislating. If the EPA's Witcher is to be believed (a big "if") than we are intentionally concentrating pollutants into a handful of communities. At the same time, the new rules would undercut the ability of harmed citizens to seek out redress for the damage to their physical health caused by the polluters. This is, quite literally, a life and death issue:
The administration's new version of New Source Review marks the latest salvo in a regulatory and legal tug of war over how best to regulate aging plants that are major contributors to air pollution, producing much of the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, especially in the East. Those two pollutants cause more than 20,000 premature deaths a year, studies show.
Power plants account for two-thirds of the country's sulfur dioxide emissions and 22 percent of its nitrogen oxide pollution. Both have been shown to cause respiratory and heart disease.
Eliot Spitzer is, and has been, on the case and promises to challenge the new rules. He's been at the front of challenging polluters--both in and outside of New York--who have violated the Clean Air Act. These rules would make most such lawsuits impossible.
The other story is that the number of Americans living in poverty rose last year. According to the Census, 45.8 million Americans now are without health insurance. That's about 800,000 more people than were uninsured in 2003, back during the heady days of the last Democratic Primary, when people were coming up with solutions to deal with this situation. In addition, 12.7% of our population now lives below the poverty line. That represents an increase of about 1.1 million people in the last year. Finally, people in Washington are starting to notice that the "recovery" isn't working out for everyone. For example:
"It looks like the gains from the recovery haven't really filtered down," said Phillip L. Swagel, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group in Washington. "The gains have gone to owners of capital and not to workers."
We can do better than this. Despite conservative rhetoric, there can be public political solutions to defeating poverty. Between 1960 and 1973, the War on Poverty cut the poverty rate in half, from 22% to 11%. Right now, when the calculate the percentage of those living in poverty, they don't take into account cost of living from locale to locale. The poverty line is set at $19,157 for a family of four.
