Clean Air and the Politics of Coal‪.‬

Air quality policy--technically complex and always contentious--has become the focus of bitter controversy. The public debate is about an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program called New Source Review (NSR), which regulates emissions from industrial facilities. There's a surprising consensus about how to fix NSR: emissions caps and a trading system. But underlying the debate and preventing compromise is deep disagreement about the future of the powerful coal industry. The administration would protect coal, whereas others give precedence to public health. The EPA has issued a series of highly complicated new rules that will dramatically weaken NSR. Of particular concern are coal-fired electric plants that have not complied with air quality standards that are 25 years old. Environmentalists cite the new rules as a vivid example of how the Bush administration is dismantling environmental protection.