"shows that under the Bush administration's plans to gut these Clean Air Act requirements, power plants would be permitted to emit 520 percent more toxic mercury, 225 percent more soot-causing sulfur dioxide, and 68 percent more smog causing nitrogen oxide than if the existing law were enforced. "
Wow, what a bunch of nonsense! I thought I had heard everything!
(Actually, I have heard this nonsense nonstop from rich environmental lawyers wanting to make a buck ever since Bush took office.)
All that the Clean Air Act is going to do is prevent a bunch of old refineries from becoming more efficient through modernizing. Why would anyone, in there right mind, write regulations that prevent modernization of factories? Why would any manager or power company ever spend that kind of money, when all they have to do is repair the dirty factories that they already have, instead of modernizing? Not only do they have to pay for the expensive modernization, but now they have to pay for the very expensive pollution equipment at the same time! (a negative reinforcement vs. the "pollution trading" positive reinforcement) As most people know who have tried it, negative reinforcement rarely works and positive reinforcement almost always does! The only reason a factory would modernize (with, or without this bill) would be to recapture their costs due to increased efficiency. Then, after that point, they make increased profits. If modernizing plants wasn't worth it before this bill, what makes anyone think it will now be worth it with all the extra costs imposed?
How has the Clean Air Act protected the quality of the air we breath? How does Bush gut it exactly? Old factories don't have to modernize, and in fact, this prevents them from doing so by making it too costly. This lower efficiency, from not modernizing them, means that they have to burn more fuel to make the same amount of electricity, thus, more pollution produced per kilowatt! On top of that, new factories are bound by higher standards anyway! Thus, there is NO net change except for a very few factories that are so far gone that they must be modernized anyway because they can't be fixed (and that is rare indeed). When you add all the factories that will be prevented from modernizing, to the few that must because they can't be fixed, I am sure you get a net gain in pollution or very little change at all. When faced with huge modernizing bills, people can find very inventive ways to repair what they have! But yes, that article does tie into all the Bush bashing and fraudulent environmental rhetoric quite well! Nothing in the Clean Air Act forces plants to produce less polution, it just forces them not to modernize!
All this from a political group that opposes the cleanest, cheapest energy around, nuclear power! I guess that is why I turned out to be a republican. I prefer to be associated with a group that is only hypocritical 20% of the time instead of 80% of the time.
Rodney
Yes opinions aside, I hope everyone gets what the want for Christmas, well except the right wing
