BACKGROUND: The Bush Administration is issuing a new rule clarifying what is meant by "routine maintenance" under "New Source Review" provisions in the 1977 Clean Air Act amendments.
The 1977 Clean Air Act amendments required power plant and oil refinery operators to install best-available anti-pollution devices whenever they modified or expanded power plants, but not when they conducted periodic maintenance, repairs and routine upgrades on the plants.
Now the Bush Administration, citing a need to make certain the rules are clear and understandable to all concerned, is announcing modifications to New Source Review regulations. Organizations and individuals on the environmental left are all but apoplectic; supporters of the change counter that the Administration is essentially returning to the policy enacted by a Democratic Congress and signed into law by President Carter.
TEN SECOND RESPONSE: The Bush Administration's New Source Review modifications will improve air quality by removing perverse incentives in Clinton-era regulations that actually encouraged industry to retain older plants instead of building cleaner, more-efficient new ones.
THIRTY SECOND RESPONSE: For two decades the Environmental Protection Agency enforced the "New Source Review" provisions of the 1977 Clean Air Act Amendments as intended by Congress. Then the Clinton Administration changed the rules, throwing the energy industry into confusion, delaying plant modernizations and causing massive numbers of lawsuits. The Bush Administration now is acting to make sure the regulations are clearly understandable and are written in accordance with Congress' original intent, so the industry will know exactly what is expected of it, and plant modernizations can take place.