Saturday, August 23, 2003
From the Guardian:
The Bush administration plans to open a huge loophole in America's air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity.
The Bush administration plans to open a huge loophole in America's air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity.
Critics of draft regulations due to be unveiled by the US environmental protection agency next week say they amount to a death knell for the Clean Air Act, the centrepiece of US regulation.
The rules could represent the biggest defeat for American environmentalists since the Bush administration abandoned the Kyoto Treaty on global warming two years ago. But the energy industry welcomed them, saying they were essential for maintaining coal-fired power stations.
The regulations are being challenged by 13 states including New York. If adopted, they would represent a multi-million dollar victory for energy corporations, most of whom are significant Republican contributors, and who were consulted in the drafting of the administration's energy plan by vice-president Dick Cheney in 2001.
The US accounts for a quarter of the world's carbon emissions, 10% more than all of western Europe combined. Environmentalists fear that, by relaxing its controls even further, America could undermine attempts to persuade other countries to stick to the targets laid out by Kyoto.
From the Independent:
The Bush administration is planning to overturn a key provision of the Clean Air Act, in effect giving industrial companies a green light to update their facilities without regard for pollution controls, according to a White House document leaked yesterday.
The measure would save firms hundreds of millions of dollars while significantly increasing industrial emissions and almost certainly contributing to global warming.
At some point the continued survival of the planet and the continued pursuit of the American lifestyle are going to become mutually exclusive. Americans make up only 4% of the world’s population. Are the other 96% just going to sit back and allow such a tiny minority to destroy the world?
The Bush administration plans to open a huge loophole in America's air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity.
The Bush administration plans to open a huge loophole in America's air pollution laws, allowing an estimated 17,000 outdated power stations and factories to increase their carbon emissions with impunity.
Critics of draft regulations due to be unveiled by the US environmental protection agency next week say they amount to a death knell for the Clean Air Act, the centrepiece of US regulation.
The rules could represent the biggest defeat for American environmentalists since the Bush administration abandoned the Kyoto Treaty on global warming two years ago. But the energy industry welcomed them, saying they were essential for maintaining coal-fired power stations.
The regulations are being challenged by 13 states including New York. If adopted, they would represent a multi-million dollar victory for energy corporations, most of whom are significant Republican contributors, and who were consulted in the drafting of the administration's energy plan by vice-president Dick Cheney in 2001.
The US accounts for a quarter of the world's carbon emissions, 10% more than all of western Europe combined. Environmentalists fear that, by relaxing its controls even further, America could undermine attempts to persuade other countries to stick to the targets laid out by Kyoto.
From the Independent:
The Bush administration is planning to overturn a key provision of the Clean Air Act, in effect giving industrial companies a green light to update their facilities without regard for pollution controls, according to a White House document leaked yesterday.
The measure would save firms hundreds of millions of dollars while significantly increasing industrial emissions and almost certainly contributing to global warming.
At some point the continued survival of the planet and the continued pursuit of the American lifestyle are going to become mutually exclusive. Americans make up only 4% of the world’s population. Are the other 96% just going to sit back and allow such a tiny minority to destroy the world?
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