Bush Administration changes rules for older power plants and guess what?

[Lucky]

Originally posted by: Piano Man
American Lung Association's Reaction

Sadly doesn't provide any arguments backed by fact, just rhetoric.

Environmental Defense Organization's Reaction

According to the MSNBC article, this link is misleading. The only factual claims they can make are based on this:


"Once enacted, the new policies announced today would broadly exempt these old, high-polluting industrial sources from the requirement to modernize their pollution controls, even when they significantly increase air pollution in surrounding neighborhoods and communities."


According to the MSNBC article, its quite the opposite:


"facilities would get ?greater flexibility? to modernize their operations without a New Resource Review as long as they don?t increase pollution "

Natural Resources Defense Council's Reaction

Again, just rhetoric. No facts or explanations to support their claims.

U.S. Public Interest Research Group's Reaction

A subsequent comment period drew comments from 130,000 concerned citizens opposing any move to weaken clean air rules


You mean folks misled by statements by the organization above? More rhetoric, no facts.

New Jersey Governer McGreevey's Response

The proposed regulation changes would allow utilities to upgrade and even replace their dirtiest plants and increase emissions without installing pollution control equipment

Again, this directly contradicts with the EPA and the MSNBC article.

I'm starting to see a pattern here.........

sheesh, me too. A bunch of organizations and idiots parroting each other making outrageous claims without backing anything up.




BTW, even though I refer to that MSNBC article its terribly biased in my opinion. They devote twice as much space to oppenents of the changes than to those in favor of them, fail to mention these changes were proposed 6 years ago, and that crappy interactive graphic on the "state of our air" is laughable. Like every single one of those illnesses are directly caused by dirty air? How are diseases frequently associated with smokers relevant to how clean the overall air is?

 

[HappyPuppy]

Piano Man is Owned!

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Piano Man
Yea, you know those damn nonprofit environmental organizations are just trying to screw us out of every damn dime we have. Its not like they are trying to help us breathe or anything, its just a coverup so they can make money.

No, they don't want to make money, and I'll give you $50 if you can show me where in my last post I said they were out for money. Oh, right, I DIDN'T.

What is wrong with these groups is that they live off of fear. They subscribe to chicken little junk science and they blow everything out of proportion. They have zero idea about how business and an economy work and as a result they espouse completely impracticable plans that would only result in crippling the economy.

ZV

 

[Quixfire]

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
Piano Man is Owned!

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

It's really irrelevant if this means more harm to the environment or not, what is relevant here is that Bush is giving his buddies a break.

 

[Quixfire]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
It's really irrelevant if this means more harm to the environment or not, what is relevant here is that Bush is giving his buddies a break.

OMG, I can't believe you gave Bush credit for knowing 17,000 power plant owners.

 

[Lucky]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
It's really irrelevant if this means more harm to the environment or not, what is relevant here is that Bush is giving his buddies a break.

LMAO...so even if this decreases emissions, it wouldn't matter to you enviromentalists. The objective has shifted from true concern of the environment to political power.

 

[HappyPuppy]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
It's really irrelevant if this means more harm to the environment or not, what is relevant here is that Bush is giving his buddies a break.

What a maroon. Have you been following this thread, or did you just decide to jump in with your observation?

 

[Lucky]

Blame Canada

 

[308nato]

Originally posted by: Quixfire

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian
It's really irrelevant if this means more harm to the environment or not, what is relevant here is that Bush is giving his buddies a break.

OMG, I can't believe you gave Bush credit for knowing 17,000 power plant owners.

These peeps will really be mad after all 17,000 plant owners bail to Switzerland with their ill gotten gains and avoid federal prosecution then GW pardons them for a donation to his presidential library just before leaving office.

Ohh the humanity.

 

[tcsenter]

Yea, you know those damn nonprofit environmental organizations are just trying to screw us out of every damn dime we have. Its not like they are trying to help us breathe or anything, its just a coverup so they can make money.

No, you misunderstand the environmental whacknuts. While some are in this for the money, the prestige, etc., what drives the movement are ideological reasons.

They would rather see you and I running around in loin-clothes, scavenging to build thatched dung huts, urinating on each other to keep the parasites off, and picking lice out of each other's body hair as a "affirming social interaction", than to see a tree harmed to build a home.

While they bang away on their electricity-consuming computers, use Quicken to track their investments, live in their exclusive Bay Area neighborhoods, and drive their SUV's into Berkeley's faculty parking lot (no shortage of 'em there - check and see for yourself), they condemn you and I for doing the same thing.

They see great injustice in the Spotted Owl getting the shaft, but have no moral, ethical, or philosophical qualms about the catastrophic economic impact their beliefs would have, if they had their way, taking us all back to the dark ages, economically. Except them, of course, it is morally and philosophically "permissable" for them to drive SUV's and use electricity because they are "fighting the good fight".

Not much different from the politburo and high ranking Communist party members not being subject to the same rules and regulations they would have foisted upon all the little people.

 

[Ryan]

Who the fvck cares - you're never going to notice it

 

[etech]

Piano Man

Those would be excellent points if it came from outside the control of the Bush administration. Try looking at non government/corporate controlled environmental websites, and you might see a strikenly different take on the situation.

Interesting, those 'excellent points' are dismissed just and only because the come from the administration. So if the administration happened to say the sky was blue you would dismiss that because of where it came from. It's just nice to know how biased some people are. Thanks for the example.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Quixfire

Originally posted by: HappyPuppy
Piano Man is Owned!

 

[j@cko]

that IS why Bush is called as a MORON.....

 

[KMurphy]

Hey pianoman, why don't you take personal responsibility and stop using electricity? You sound as if those power companies don't really serve a purpose and are just sending contaminants into the air for the hell of it. The burden lies on the consumer's backs, not the supplier. How about if generation plants just stopped producing? What would that do to your little fairytale land? Instead of being an armchair activist, grow a pair and do something about it.

 

[Harvey]

The entire Bush administration is a bunch of Fig Puckers. :|

 

[FelixDeCat]

Originally posted by: Harvey
The entire Bush administration is a bunch of Fig Puckers. :|

What is a Fig Pucker? ..........OH!!

 

[etech]

Oh well Harvey, if you say so it must be true. That's such a well reasoned and thoughtful post that no one could disagree with your conclusion.

 

[zephyrprime]

Under the new rules, which do not require congressional approval, facilities would get ?greater flexibility? to modernize their operations without a New Resource Review as long as they don?t increase pollution

People have to learn to read between the lines. As I understand it, old plants are exempt from the more stringent emmisions requirements of new plants. With NRR as it was, these plants would have to meet the more stringent requirements if they ever upgraded their equipment. In this way, the cost of modernizing is amortized over time so as to not put too great a economic burden on power producers. Upgrading is unavoidable because it's one cheap way to meet increasing demand for energy. But with the new NRR policy, these plants can upgrade and not meet the new stringent requirements so long as they don't pollute more than they did with their old equipment. This allows for more pollution emmisions than would have been allowed previously for a given amount of power production. So you see, everything that is said in administration press releases and in the MSNBC article is true. But everything said is also double speak and misleading. Do the new rules allow for more pollution than currently exists? Answer: no. Thus, the EPA can say that there's no new pollution. But do the new rules allow for more polllution than the old rules? Answer: yes.

(6) MYTH: Because some of the final rule changes allow facilities to freeze their emission levels for 10 years, EPA?s changes to the NSR program will not lead to air quality improvements.
FACT: This claim is simply untrue. As noted above, EPA?s review shows that the changes made by the final rule will provide a net benefit to air quality by removing current NSR barriers to environmentally beneficial projects and by removing incentives in the current NSR rules to keep pollution at high levels.

Notice that they say there will be a net benefit to the new rules but they don't say there will be a net benefit over the old rules. See? This is talking around the issue. The new rules basically allow for middling equipment upgrades hence the "net benefit" but the old rules required bigtime equipment upgrades.

Now this being said, I must state that I agree that the old rules did provide an incentive to not decrease emmisions in many situations. The rules basically said "if you upgrade, you must get the expensive, high efficiency equipment...and you must upgrade by 20xx". With a rule like this, a company would naturally postpone upgrading until the last minute.

Much of what you read in any press release is spin. And much of what you read on an issue website (including environmental ones) is also spin. Beware.

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: etech
Oh well Harvey, if you say so it must be true. That's such a well reasoned and thoughtful post that no one could disagree with your conclusion.

Glad you see the wisdom of my logic.

BTW, did you know that coal fired power plants are already the number one contributor of particulate contamination of our air -- even more than cars, trucks, etc.? Did you know this causes thousands of premature deaths every year? Are you curious how many lives Christine Todd Whitman was willing to sell out for more bucks from the power lobby?

Hmmm.... Isn't that the same dispicable bunch that met with Prick Cheyney behind closed doors when they were figuring out how to rape the rest of us with relaxed environmental regulations? I mean, why should he give a sh8? He can pick up more millions in bribes... err... campaing funding, but with that bum ticker of his, he won't be around long enough to see all the sick, dying and dead kids in ten or twenty years as a result of the added polution.

I'm beginning to smell a pattern, and that smell is downwind from a power plant. :|

 

[Tominator]

Harvey, you are a sel proclaimed Liberal. Now we know you are a self proclaimed IDIOT Liberal!

The only smell we will have to put up with is the one when you fail to cover up your own feces every morning because you have outlawed every human invention!

 

[PistachioByAzul]

Tominator aren't you always proudly saying "Typical liberal, can't debate so he resorts to insults"? What are you doing now?

 

[etech]

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: etech
Oh well Harvey, if you say so it must be true. That's such a well reasoned and thoughtful post that no one could disagree with your conclusion.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Glad you see the wisdom of my logic.


Harvey, you left the rolling eyes icon out of the quote. Somehow it adds to the meaning of my post.
I see a lot of conjecture in your post about raping and such. I will say this, The administration has two choices on how to deal with this situation. They can be adversarial to the energy business and load it down with draconian requirements that only add to the cost of doing business hurting us all, or they can work with industry to lower pollution and the cost of energy which helps us all. I believe the second choice is the best. I see you prefer the first.


j@cko
One more to add to the list of moronic posters. Please either add something to the discussion or just stay out of them.

 

[Lucky]

But do the new rules allow for more polllution than the old rules? Answer: yes.

Interesting. Can anyone confirm this?