Clean Air News

As the new home of NCPIRG's environmental work, Environment North Carolina can be contacted with any questions regarding this news release. 

RALEIGH—As a key U.S. Senate committee considers the White House's bill to delay and weaken clean air safeguards, a new Clear the Air report released today by the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG) and the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) finds that while North Carolina is working hard to clean its air, pollution from power plants in surrounding states is on the rise.

"Here in North Carolina we have worked hard to protect public health by reducing pollution from the state's old, dirty power plants," said NCPIRG Field Organizer, Breanna Peterson. "Unfortunately the good work we have done is not enough, and if the White House succeeds in passing its deceptively named "Clear Skies" initiative, we will be in even worse shape.

"Pollution on the Rise: Local Trends in Power Plant Pollution," which examines U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data on power plant emissions since 1995, shows that pollution from contributing to North Carolina's dirty air is increasing. For example, since 1995, power plants in Virginia have increased their smog-forming nitrogen oxide emissions by as much as 88 percent. Some of West Virginia's dirtiest power plants have increased soot-forming sulfur dioxide emissions by nearly 200 percent.

In 2002, North Carolina passed legislation to reduce power plant pollution by more than 70 percent. But data from the NC Division of Air Quality shows that some of North Carolina's air pollution is carried into the state from coal-burning power plants in other Southern and Midwestern states. Using this evidence, Attorney General, Roy Cooper, petitioned the federal government to clean up dirty power plants in thirteen states: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan.

The Bush administration's Clear Skies initiative would virtually eliminate North Carolina's ability to take actions against polluting states like these.

"North Carolina has been working hard to solve our air pollution problems, but the Bush administration's bill will set us back decades," added Ulla Reeves of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "The bill creates a permanent loophole in federal law which allows the dirtiest power plants across the nation to continue polluting our skies."

With research finding adverse health effects from air pollution at levels once considered safe, more people than ever live in areas that fail to meet national health standards. Pollution from coal-burning power plants is linked to health problems as serious as lung disease, heart attack, asthma, and even childhood learning disabilities.

"Old coal burning power plants release enough pollutants and toxic mercury to threaten the health of our citizens, especially the most vulnerable - young children," said Dr. Debbie Leiner, M.D. of Piedmont Pediatrics in Greensboro.

"Every North Carolina pediatrician sees at least one of the state's 125,000 children with asthma in the office every day," continued Leiner. "More alarming are new studies that suggest that even some healthy children who grow up in heavily polluted areas will have permanently stunted lung growth."

"Pollution on the Rise" also shows that annual sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and global warming pollutant carbon dioxide emissions have increased at many of North Carolina's oldest and dirtiest power plants from 1995 to 2003. Thanks to North Carolina's new strict power plant regulations, the trend on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions will begin to reverse over the next decade.

In addition to limiting states like North Carolina from petitioning other states to clean up their pollution, the so-called "Clear Skies" bill would delay until after 2018 sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide reductions called for in the Clean Air Act, and repeal New Source Review for power plants, while ignoring global warming altogether. Earlier this month, the National Academy of Sciences confirmed that the administration's bill is weaker than current law for individual power plants.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change, and Nuclear Safety is holding on a hearing on the administration's bill today.

"NCPIRG and SACE commend Senator Burr for standing with medical and public health advocates who vigorously oppose the Bush administration's bill. We urge Senator Dole to join him and protect North Carolina's health," concluded Peterson.

The report recommends that EPA and federal and state lawmakers reject the so-called Clear Skies plan, and instead:

- Enforce existing Clean Air Act programs, including New Source Review, designed to ensure that every community has healthy air;

- As a first step, pass a national cap that limits CO2 emissions economy-wide to 2000 levels by 2010;

- Strengthen and finalize EPA's proposed Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) to cap SO2 and NOx emissions from power plants in the eastern U.S. at 1.8 million tons and 1 million tons, respectively, by the end of the decade, as the law requires.