Click the image to view an interactive map of how the new EPA clean air rules will allow 33 new coal-fired power plants to pollute our national parks

Under this White House, the EPA isn't so much the Environmental Protection Agency as it is the Energy Protection Agency. With Clean Air Act rules already relaxed for mercury emissions by power plants near highly populated areas, the EPA now says they're likely to relax the rules near our nations most pristine lands, the National Parks so they can pave the way for even more polluting power plants.

The Bush administration is on the verge of implementing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build power plants near national parks and wilderness areas, according to rank-and-file agency scientists and park managers who oppose the plan.

The new regulations, which are likely to be finalized this summer, rewrite a provision of the Clean Air Act that applies to "Class 1 areas," federal lands that currently have the highest level of protection under the law. Opponents predict the changes will worsen visibility at many of the nation's most prized tourist destinations, including Virginia's Shenandoah, Colorado's Mesa Verde and North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt national parks.

Nearly a year ago, with little fanfare, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed changing the way the government measures air pollution near Class 1 areas on the grounds that the nation needed a more uniform way of regulating emissions near protected areas. The agency closed the comment period in April and has indicated it is not making significant changes to the draft rule, despite objections by EPA staff members. (emphasis added)

That last point is important to keep in mind. Many, if not most of the people who work for the EPA are good people who truly want to do their jobs. But at every turn, they're overruled by political flaks put in place by the Bush White House to make the rules as beneficial to big business as possible, especially big energy.

But here's the real problem with the ruling.

On Thursday, the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group, issued a report estimating that the rule would ease the way for the construction of 33 new coal-fired power plants within 186 miles of 10 national parks. In each of the next 50 years, the report concludes, the new plants would emit a total of 122 million tons of carbon dioxide, 79,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 52,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, and 4,000 pounds of toxic mercury into the air over and around the Great Smoky Mountains, Zion and eight other national parks.

"It's like if you're pulled over by a cop for going 75 miles per hour in a 55 miles-per-hour zone, and you say, 'If you look at how I've driven all year, I've averaged 55 miles per hour,' " said Mark Wenzler, director of the National Parks Conservation Association's clean-air programs. "It allows you to vastly underestimate the impact of these emissions."

Unfortunately, the public comment period for the proposed rule changes ended in April, so there's pretty much nothing that can be done now. It seems like the changes will likely take effect, so this ends up being just one more thing added to the list of thousands that we hope the next President sees fit to undo.

You can click the image to view a map of how the new rules will impact our National Parks, or for more information visit the National Parks Conservation Association.

Representatives Henry Waxman and Edward Markey have introduced a new bill that strictly limits how new coal-fired power plants are being built. From their announcement:

"Comprehensive economy-wide regulation to address global warming is coming soon," said Rep. Waxman. “But new uncontrolled coal-fired power plants are being built today. My legislation says: “No new plants without emissions controls.” The alternative is senseless - locking in decades of additional global warming emissions and requiring greater emissions reductions across the U.S. economy to compensate."

"If we lose control of coal, we will have lost control of the climate," said Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "This bill will make companies prepare for the future and prevent them from building low-tech coal-fired power plants before a global warming bill is passed that will necessitate the use of the newest, most climate-friendly technology. "

Without emissions controls, a new coal-fired power plant will emit hundreds of millions of tons of global warming pollution over its fifty-year lifetime. Over 100 new plants have been proposed, and even if just a portion of these are built, they will emit over a hundred million tons of carbon dioxide a year. One of these plants alone could offset the reductions that will be achieved through the Northeastern states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The bill places a moratorium on either EPA or states issuing permits to new coal-fired power plants without state-of-the-art control technology to capture and permanently sequester the plant's carbon dioxide emissions. The moratorium extends until a comprehensive federal regulatory program for global warming pollution is in place.

The bill also bars a new coal-fired power plant without state-of-the-art control technology from receiving any free or reduced cost emissions allowances under a future federal program to address global warming.

While it's not an outright ban on new coal-fired power plants, it may work out to becoming an effective ban. Companies are not going to want to build coal-fired power plants when the costs of meeting these strict requirements are so high.

An outright ban on coal power plants, while it would be the most desirable action, isn't likely to pass either the House or Senate. As it is, this bill is going to have a long, hard fight in order to make it to the President's desk. And I highly doubt the President will sign such a strongly worded bill.

But more often than not, legislation of this type takes three or four attempts before it becomes law, and with a new President in office in less than a year, chances are it's only a matter of time before coal goes away forever.

Keep in mind, however, that while people may not be totally against coal-fired power plants if they're permanently sequestering CO², there are still a lot of coal mines out there wreaking havoc on the environment. The only long-term solution is an outright ban, but I don't have a problem taking small steps towards that goal when the opportunity presents itself

The bill itself hasn't been assigned a number yet, and it isn't listed at the Library of Congress yet, but you can read the text of the bill as it was introduce here (pdf).