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Old, Dirty Power Plants Off the Hook After Bush Administration Eases the Rules Dr. Ubaldo Martín is a lung doctor at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. Many of his patients are Puerto Rican, a community that suffers from very high rates of asthma1 and suffers all the more because of limited access to health care, lack of information about the illness, and living in polluted areas.2 Thania Delgado, for example, sometimes can't even walk a block because her asthma overcomes her. "I don't have medical insurance, and since I don't have a doctor, I use my son's asthma medicine," she says. And Thania's son, who is six, is suffering too. He was diagnosed with asthma at a week old when he stopped breathing. He now has two or three attacks each year, more than what doctors consider acceptable. Since the Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970, air quality has improved in many regions of our country. But even after 30 years of progress, more than 130 million Americans and 3.8 million residents of southeastern Pennsylvania, continue to breathe dirty, unhealthy air.3 Pennsylvania is home to 35 coal-fired power plants, located throughout the state which contribute to air quality problems in the area.4 Also Pennsylvania citizens breathe pollution from dirty Midwestern power plants located upwind in Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia, as well as winds blowing in from Baltimore and Washington. And now because the Bush administration is weakening clean air protections, Pennsylvania's air pollution problems stand to get worse. "Pollution plays a very significant role in asthma and exacerbates it. There isn't any way to deny that. Anything that allows pollution to accelerate, any policy that goes soft on environmental protection, ultimately harms asthma patients," says Dr. Martín. Under the Clean Air Act, the New Source Review program requires older plants to install modern pollution control technologies when they make significant changes that increase pollution. The Bush administration is exempting factories including utilities from this program, allowing older, more polluting plants to avoid pollution reduction, placing local communities and those downwind at increasing risk of health damage and pollution. The New Source Review program works. Companies that were sued for breaking this part of the Clean Air Act have since agreed to install modern technology that will result in pollution reductions approaching a million tons a year when fully implemented. That means a lot less soot and smog pollution in communities where these plants are located.5 "Clean air sounds right, it's wrong for anyone to weaken the law," says Tahnia. "Sooner or later people will start wearing masks on the street because this is getting worse and worse." Thirty years of progressively cleaner air shows that it doesn't have to be this way, we have the know-how and the technology to reduce pollution. But by consistently siding with the coal and utility industries, the Bush administration is putting polluters' profits ahead of people's health. For more information contact: Sierra Club American Lung Association of Pennsylvania
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