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Twelve law professors joined more than sixty public interest groups in asking Senate and House Committees to investigate the role that industry lobbyists have played in weakening the Clean Air Act over the last six years.

OVER 70 PUBLIC INTEREST ORGANIZATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAW PROFESSORS VOICE CONCERNS OVER LAX OVERSIGHT OF EPAS OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION

Letter to U.S. Senate Environment Committee Highlights Undue Industry Influence Cited in NSR for Power Plants, Increasing Emissions from Refineries

Washington, D.C.///March 1, 2007///The Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) and more than 70 other concerned parties today issued a joint letter urging the U.S. Senate Environment Committee to stop regulatory rollbacks at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Air and Radiation (OAR):

EIP Project Director Eric Schaeffer said:  "Congress needs to ask why the Office of Air and Radiation keeps running errands for industry lobbyists, instead of protecting the public health as the Clean Air Act requires."

"EPA's lack of political will in enforcing the law as written is a chronic, increasingly harmful problem," said Rena Steinzor, board member of the Center for Progressive Regulation and professor of law at the University of Maryland. 

The joint letter submitted by environmental groups, environmental law professors and others reads in part:  "We are writing to respectfully request that the Senate Environment Committee investigate the disproportionate influence that industry lobbyists have exercised over decisions made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Air and Radiation since 2001. & Within the last few months, OAR has either proposed or taken final action to further weaken a number of important Clean Air Act standards.  For example: 

* OAR will shortly announce new rules that will allow some of the nation's dirtiest power plants to increase their emissions by hundreds or even thousands of tons annually without having to comply with New Source Review (NSR) or upgrade pollution controls.  These grandfathered plants will remain exempt unless the government can prove that physical modifications increase emissions on an hourly basis. 

* OAR also proposed to authorize emission increases that result from "debottlenecking" downstream units, or from physical modifications to multiple units that are part of a single project.  These rollbacks will allow petrochemical plants to increase air pollution at a time when U.S. refiners are enjoying record profits from high gasoline prices.

* OAR has announced that emissions from oil and gas exploration and drilling operations will not count in determining whether NSR pollution control requirements apply, unless the emission sources are in "close proximity" to each other.  While oilmen have hailed the decision as, "favorable to our industry,"the new policy will leave the Rocky Mountain west and other areas even more exposed to a growing source of air pollution. 

* OAR is proposing to shrink the universe of "major sources" subject to federal Clean Air Act permitting requirements, by changing rules that define a facility's potential to emit air pollutants, making it much harder for state agencies to achieve air quality goals."

In addition to the Environmental Integrity Project, the complete list of joint letter signers reads as follows:   American Bottom Conservancy; NYPIRG  New York Public Interest; Upper Green River Valley Coalition; Environment Colorado; American Lung Association; Physicians for Social Responsibility; Citizens for Environmental Justice; Lone Star Chapter of Sierra Club; Grand Canyon Trust; Environmental Working Group; Luke Darragh, chairman, Planning Commission, McDonald, PA; Chesapeake Climate Action Network; The Delaware Audubon Society; David M. Driesen, Angela S. Cooney professor, Syracuse University College of Law; U.S. PIRG; Alyson Flournoy, UF Research Foundation professor, and director,  Environmental and Land Use Law Program, University of Florida Levin College of Law;  David Gard, Energy Program Director, Lansing, MI; Integrity in Science Project/Center for Science in the Public Interest; Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition; Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture); Sierra Club; Citizen Power; The Action Committee to Improve the Environment In Beaver County; Community In-power and Development Association Inc./CIDA Inc., Port Arthur, TX.;  Christine A. Klein, professor of Law
University of Florida, Levin College of Law; Judy Kramer, Planning Commission, Bulger, PA; Lone Star Chapter Sierra Club;  Mark W. Kramer, supervisor,
Bulger, PA; Allison LaPlante, staff attorney and clinical professor, Pacific Environmental Advocacy Center, Lewis & Clark Law School; Refinery Reform Network; Plains Justice; Powder River Basin Resource Council; RAPP (Residents Against Power Plant), Bulger, PA; George M.  Lucchino, chairman, Board of Supervisors, McDonald, PA; WildLaw; Jefferson Action Group, Inc., Jefferson Hills, PA; Delaware Audubon Society, Tom McGarity, professor of law, University of Texas School of Law; Joel A. Mintz, professor of law, Nova Southeastern University Law Center; Clean Wisconsin; San Joaquin Valley Air Quality Project/Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment; Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action; Midwest Clean Energy Campaign; Sierra Club; Clean Air Watch; Patrick Parenteau, professor of law and director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, Vermont Law School; Earthjustice; Army for a Clean Environment, Inc.; Clifford Rechtschaffen, professor of law, Golden Gate University School of Law; Louisiana Bucket Brigade; Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER); Our Childrens Earth; Texas Campaign for the Environment; Public Citizen's Energy Program; Missouri Coalition for the Environment; Public Citizens Texas office;  Galveston Houston Association for Smog Prevention; Rena Steinzor, Jacob A. France Research professor law, University of Maryland School of Law; Joseph P. Tomain, dean emeritus and Wilbert & Helen Ziegler professor of law, University of Cincinnati
College of Law; Georgia Center for Law in the Public Interest; Dakota Resource Council; Harvey Treschow, engineer, Pittsburgh, PA; American Lung Association of Metropolitan Chicago; Robert Ukeiley, Berea, KY; Sandra Ulrich, secretary, Planning Commission, Bulger, PA; Wasatch Clean Air Coalition; Mildred Van Voorhis , Jones faculty scholar, College of Law, University of Illinois;  Crude Accountability; Environmental Awareness Committee/Save Our Sacred (SOS) Earth Campaign; Cynthia A. Williams, professor of law, College of Law, University of Illinois;  and Andrew Zimmer, Zoning Officer, McDonald, PA.

For additional information and to read the OAR letter in its entirety, visit the EIP Web site at http://www.environmentalintegrity.org.

CONTACT: Patrick Mitchell, (703) 276-3266 or pmitchell@hastingsgroup.com.

Click here for the letters to Chairperson Boxer, Chairman Waxman and Chairman Dingell