Clean Power Act Would Take America Forward

Legislation provides essential first steps to preventing worst impacts of global warming.

Portsmouth, NH (June 26, 2002)—Clean Air-Cool Planet today urged members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to support Senator Jim Jeffords’ (I-Vt.) proposed Clean Power Act (S.556), an impressive first shot at dramatically reducing air pollutants that cause smog, acid rain, respiratory diseases, and global warming. The bill will be formally discussed in committee for the first time on Thursday June 27.

The Clean Power Act would slash levels of the four main pollutants from power stations that burn fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, to generate electricity. The legislation would cut power plant emissions as follows:

• carbon dioxide would be reduced to 1990 levels
• sulphur dioxide would be cut by 75 percent (below Phase II acid rain levels under the Clean Air Act of 1990)
• nitrogen oxides would drop by 75 percent from 1997 levels, and
• mercury emissions would be cut by 90 percent from 1999 levels.

The bill requires states to meet these targets beginning in 2008, and contains provisions that allow states to use practical and cost-effective methods of achieving them.

The carbon dioxide reductions called for in the bill are the same as those agreed in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which was signed by the former President George H. Bush and was unanimously ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1992. CO2 is the main pollutant responsible for global climate change—a trend that is causing habitat loss in New England, maple sap to run less sweet, and winter ski seasons to end earlier.

“Northeastern states, including New Hampshire and Massachusetts, have already begun to take the lead in controlling carbon dioxide from their dirtiest power plants,” says Adam Markham, Executive Director for Clean Air-Cool Planet. “Now it’s time for the rest of the country to help us clean up the air and slow the menace of global warming”

Opponents of the Clean Power Act are expected to try to substantially weaken the bill’s provisions and strip out the cap on carbon dioxide emissions entirely.

About Clean Air-Cool Planet
Clean Air- Cool Planet inspires coordinated action among citizens, businesses, government, and community leaders throughout the Northeast to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases. CA-CP has forged effective partnerships with major businesses and corporations in the region, including Shaw’s Supermarkets, The Timberland Company, and Verizon. Visit www.cleanair-coolplanet.org.

Contact: Clean Air-Cool Planet
Bill Burtis, Communications Manager, (603) 422-6464 ext. 105
bburtis@cleanair-coolplanet.org