Daniels urges passage of Clear Skies Initiative

INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov. Mitch Daniels said Thursday that President Bush's plan for cutting emissions from the nation's coal-fired power plants and other industries would encourage cleaner-burning plants and improve Indiana's air and its residents' health.\nDaniels endorsed the president's Clear Skies Initiative during a visit by Steve Johnson, the acting chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, who said it would give industries more flexibility to make their plants cleaner-burning.\nEnvironmentalists oppose the legislation, arguing that it would significantly weaken parts of the Clean Air Act, including sections that allow states to sue power plants and craft tougher limits on emissions.\nDaniels said he supports the legislation's intent of curtailing lawsuits, saying they have proven a costly roadblock to getting plants to reduce their emissions of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.\n"If it's obstructed we'll just have more years of delay and there will not be the new investments we need to clean up the state's air," Daniels said during a news conference at the Statehouse.\nThe Bush proposal would amend the 1970 Clean Air Act to reduce nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury in the air using a so-called "cap-and-trade" initiative.\nThat effort would impose emissions caps and allow companies that emit less gas than allowed to trade unused allotments to others who overshoot the target.\nBrian Wright, the Hoosier Environmental Council's coal policy director, said expanding the cap-and-trade practice would lead to more "hot spots" of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury -- which would be regulated for the first time -- around the state's dirtiest power plants.\nIndiana's coal-fired power plants provide more than 90 percent of the state's electricity, but also release smog-creating pollutants. Those plants are a large reason why 24 mostly urban Indiana counties do not meet new federal health standards for smog-causing ozone.\nOf the various pieces of legislation now before Congress that seek to address air pollution, Wright said Bush's proposal was the least attractive to environmentalists.\n"It's the weakest of the multi-pollutant bills out there right now and we think that it's the wrong proposal for protecting the health of the people of Indiana," Wright said.\nIf the legislation passes, however, Johnson predicts it would result in cleaner air nationwide. By 2020, he said, it would lead to an estimated 500 fewer respiratory-related deaths and some 300 fewer annual cases of chronic bronchitis in Indiana.\nHe said the total medical savings would be many times greater than the estimated $52 billion it would cost to upgrade more than 1,300 power plants nationwide over the next 20 years.\n"Clear Skies is not only good (for) the environment and public health, it's also good for the economy," Johnson said.