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New Clean Air rules are an improvement
Half a loaf is better than none - maybe.
We're not sure that's the right measure to apply to clean air standards, but given the mutterings and half-hearted endorsements that greeted the Environmental Protection Agencies' proposed new "Clean Air Interstate Rule" that was announced last week, it's going to have to do.
Environmentalists complained the anti-air pollution measure - aimed at coal-burning power plants - aren't strict enough.
The energy industry had supported the Bush adminstration's proposed "Clear Skies" proposal that would have set similar goals for coal plant emission reductions.
Environmental groups had been pushing for 90 percent reductions in a shorter time span.
The Clear Skies plan which was a centerpiece of the Bush administration's environmental plans died last week when it couldn't get out of a deadlocked Senate committee.
The new Interstate Rules are a regional plan that applies to 28 state in the eastern United States - including Wisconsin. Instead of setting federal standards for power plants, the rule allows states to set standards - with approval of the EPA. It also preserves the rights of power utilities, states and environmental groups to sue if they believe the standards are too weak or strong.
Potentially more bothersome, perhaps, are the "cap and trade" provisions in the Clear Skies plan that allow utilities to sell or trade emission credits with utilities in the same state or any other state. That approach has been effective in some pollution reduction programs, but it could also result in some utilities lagging behind the goals by buying their way out of pollution upgrades.
That's the same kind of logic used to justify the two massive coal plants on Racine County's northern border - by shutting down an old coal plant at Port Washington and converting it to natural gas. It might reduced emissions overall, but no one doubts that Port Washington gets the better end of that emission reduction stick.
We Energies, which is still locked in state court fights over its proposed Oak Creek expansion, says it is "well positioned" to meet the emission reductions proposed under the new rule.
By some estimates the goals will require utilities to spend as much as $50 billion in the next decade. Most of those costs, of course, will be passed on straight to consumers.
Assuming the goals are met, the scrubbers and other upgrades are expected to result in annual health benefits of $100 billion per year and make America's skies cleaner than they have been in more than three decades.
It's not a cheap plan, but it's not a bad one.
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