Saturday, August 23, 2003

BUSH'S REIGN OF TERROR CONTINUES
Rule would let plants emit more air pollution


From Reuters via the Houston Chronicle:

The Environmental Protection Agency is set to issue a final rule that would make it easier for industrial facilities to upgrade their plants without having to install expensive equipment to fight air pollution, the activist group said.

The new rule would allow facilities to avoid installing pollution controls when they replace equipment -- even if the upgrade increases pollution -- as long as the cost of the replacement equipment did not exceed 20 percent of the cost of what the EPA broadly defines as a "process unit," according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"Corporate polluters will now be able to spew even more harmful chemicals into our air, regardless of the fact that it will harm millions of Americans," said the NRDC, which obtained a leaked copy of the EPA's final rule.

Emissions from coal-fired plants can aggravate asthma, chronic bronchitis and pneumonia.


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