EPA Rule Will Limit Emission Testing - 2X In Five Years MORE Than Enough!

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The Bush administration on Thursday issued a new federal rule that limits pollution testing and will likely make it harder for state and federal regulators to monitor pollution from some industrial smokestacks.

Fewer air polluters are likely to be caught if government agencies measure emissions from smokestacks less often, which critics say will happen under the new rule limiting a tool used by environmental cops.

Under the new rule, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will limit how often federal and state environmental police can monitor some stacks. The rule applies to hundreds of companies whose smokestack emissions aren't monitored under specific EPA rules aimed at curbing such problems as acid rain from power plants and smog in cities with heavy air pollution.

In the late 1990s, the EPA would at times require large plants to monitor smokestacks more often the twice-every-five-years spelled out in the Clean Air Act if the companies weren't already being checked under other EPA provisions. Industry groups sued the EPA to stop requiring such additional monitoring, saying it wasn't legal for the agency to do more than the act required. The EPA agreed, and on Thursday issued the new rule, saying neither it nor state environmental agencies could require pollution checks more than twice every five years in those cases."

EDIT

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/politics/7773738.htm

[dfong63]

1. simply amazing