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[Original Message]
From: Gordon Aubrecht <aubrecht.1@OSU.EDU>
To: <PHYSOC@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU>
Date: 4/4/2004 8:21:48 AM
Subject: the end of new source review
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/04/magazine/04BUSH.html
New York Times Magazine, p. 38
April 4, 2004
Changing All the Rules
By Bruce Barcott
----------
Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor at Outside magazine. This is
his first cover article for The Times Magazine.
----------
President Bush doesn't talk about new-source review very often. In
fact, he has mentioned it in a speech to the public only once, in
remarks he delivered on Sept. 15, 2003, to a cheering crowd of
power-plant workers and executives in Monroe, Mich., about 35 miles
south of Detroit. It was an ideal audience for his chosen subject.
New-source review, or N.S.R., involves an obscure and complex set of
environmental rules and regulations that most Americans have never
heard of, but to people who work in the power industry, few subjects
are more crucial.
The Monroe plant, which is operated by Detroit Edison, is one of the
nation's top polluters. Its coal-fired generators emit more mercury,
a toxic chemical, than any other power plant in the state. Until
recently, power plants like the one in Monroe were governed by N.S.R.
regulations, which required the plant's owners to install new
pollution-control devices if they made any significant improvements
to the plant. Those regulations now exist in name only; they were
effectively eliminated by a series of rule changes that the Bush
administration made out of the public eye in 2002 and 2003. What the
president was celebrating in Monroe was the effective end of
new-source review.
"The old regulations," he said, speaking in front of a huge American
flag, "undermined our goals for protecting the environment and
growing the economy." New-source review just didn't work, he said. It
dissuaded power companies from updating old equipment. It kept power
plants from operating at full efficiency. "Now we've issued new rules
that will allow utility companies, like this one right here, to make
routine repairs and upgrades without enormous costs and endless
disputes," the president said. "We simplified the rules. We made them
easy to understand. We trust the people in this plant to make the
right decisions." The audience applauded.
the rest is at the above URL
Gordon Aubrecht
Professor of Physics
OSU Physics (614) 292-2574, FAX (614) 292-7557
Marion Campus (740) 389-6786, ext. 6250, FAX (614) 292-5817
check out my web sites through my home page
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~aubrecht
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the
results.--Sir Winston Churchill
As a rule we disbelieve all the facts and theories for which we have
no use.--William James (1842 - 1910)