Power plant cleanup

Northeastern states, including Maine, properly fought to force dirty power plants in the Midwest to clean up their emissions before downwind neighbors took more drastic steps at home. But a federal court tossed out rules by the Environmental Protection Agency to do this, a compromise between regions failed, New York sued 17 Midwestern plants and everyone on both sides got hot under the collar. Now Rep. Tom Allen has introduced a bill that would satisfy everyone but the owners of those power plants.

The Clean Power Plant act of 1999 would by 2005 enforce new unit maximum emissions for mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and a total cap for carbon dioxide, establish funds for workers hurt by the new rules and make the progress reports on these standards available to the public. Best of all, it removes the exemptions enjoyed for the last decade by coal-fired plants in the Midwest. The pollutants from these plants drift east, fouling air in this region.

The Allen bill should satisfy the court’s objection that the EPA had gone beyond its legislative mandate. And it should please the EPA, which wanted the grandfather clause removed from the Clean Air Act. The Northeastern states would get cleaner air, and New York would not have to go through the expense of a lawsuit. Everybody’s happy.

At least, almost everybody. The power-plant owners and their very effective Washington lobbyists are not. Rep. Allen has anticipated some of their arguments — that his bill would hurt workers, raise electric rates and limit fuel options. The proposal, for instance, authorizes $75 million to be spent to help affected workers and another $75 million to help communities and it stays away from proscribing specific processes that would exclude coal as a fuel source. But the proposal is certain to run into the vague, all-condemning “bad for business” charge that has defeated similar measures.

The response might be that these relatively few plants are limiting business opportunities in the Northeast by fouling the air and making the EPA reluctant to approve expansions here, to say nothing of the health effects. There was never a promise to grandfather these plants in perpetuity. They have had a free ride for 10 years; Rep. Allen’s bill offers five more. Many industries would pay dearly to get 15 years to install pollution-control technology.

At least that’s how Gov. George W. Bush looked at it when he proposed that 136 grandfathered power plants in his state no longer would be allowed to pollute more than other plants. The governor and presidential aspirant demanded 50 percent cuts in emissions in a state that leads the nation in the production of air pollution. Republicans in Congress could consider Rep. Allen’s bill Bush policy writ large.

The bill, nevertheless, will face strong opposition. What will help is that members of Congress know that the proposal will treat all states fairly, stop providing an undue advantage to a small minority of power plants and improve air quality nationwide under a reasonable time frame. It’s a bill worthy of broad support.