This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
WASHINGTON - Working to reduce haze over Grand Canyon National Park as Utah's governor was a major selling point on Mike Leavitt's environmental resum when he became head of the Environmental Protection Agency a year ago.
Now the agency is poised to finalize a new set of air pollution rules that critics say would replace provisions mandated by Congress 25 years ago to help states enforce cleaner air in national parks with a less stringent program that Leavitt calls "a better way."
The new rules would ease the original requirements that older coal-fired power plants upwind of parks install modern technology to reduce emissions of sulfur and nitrogen that cause haze. Instead, power plants out of compliance because they emit more than 250 tons annually of the pollutants could continue operate - if they buy "credits" from plants that clean up faster and if the air quality in neighboring parks doesn't get worse.
That's not good enough, say environmental groups and a coalition of outdoor recreation manufacturers.
Plus, a bipartisan group of 27 U.S. senators have warned Leavitt he should not thwart Congress' 1977 mandate that power plants near parks and wilderness areas must install "best available retrofit technology" (BART) to improve the scenic vistas.
Delayed by years of litigation, the BART guidelines to reduce park haze won't be finalized until April 2005. But the new set of rules, which Leavitt has dubbed "CAIR" for Clean Air Interstate Rule, will be signed into regulatory force before the end of this year.
In the alphabet-soup-speak of the EPA, senators told Leavitt in a Oct. 12 letter that his CAIR better not be a stealthy substitute for their BART.
"When faced with the need to guarantee specific, local reductions near the parks and other Class 1 [scenic] areas, market-based regulations may fall short," wrote the group of 23 Democrats and four Republicans, including Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who rarely takes a position on environmental issues.
"We oppose any effort to further delay the implementation of the BART rules. They have already been delayed too long."
Aimed at a broader target of smokestack polluters in the "airsheds" of metropolitan areas in 28 Eastern states, the CAIR package was called the Interstate Air Quality Rule before Leavitt came to the EPA and transformed the name into a more soothing acronym.
EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said CAIR's alternative approach is part of a more effective strategy to clean national park air faster and more thoroughly than the original rule.
"This alternative would only be acceptable provided it is 'better than BART,' that is, it yields greater visibility improvement and emissions reductions than would be expected through emission controls on each facility," she said. "Our proposed test for 'better than BART' is that, on average, the region must have greater emissions reductions and improved visibility, and visibility in individual parks cannot decline."
But no decline in park visibility also means no improvement either, argues the Outdoor Industry Association, composed of 4,000 recreation equipment manufacturers that generate sales of $18 billion annually.
"With visibility loss in these national treasures ranging from 43 to 80 percent, the outdoor industry and the tourist economies surrounding our parks and wilderness areas are at risk," wrote the CEOs of the outdoor gear companies. That's the same group that last year threatened to relocate its twice-yearly trade show from Salt Lake City due to Leavitt's efforts to delist potential wilderness areas in Utah from federal protection.
A flock of environmental groups also sent an Oct. 6 letter to Leavitt - a follow-up from a March 6 letter that they say he never responded to - asking him to uphold the original guarantee that dirty power plants near parks must clean up, no exceptions.
"CAIR has no such mandate to clear the air in America's priceless public lands and does not guarantee that power plants polluting special places such as Great Smoky Mountains National Park or the Presidential Range in New Hampshire will reduce their emissions," wrote leaders of the National Environmental Trust, National Parks Conservation Association, the Izaak Walton League and others.
Conservationists also say Leavitt's proposed rollback of rules to require clearer and healthier air in parks confirms their original skepticism of his claimed commitment to protecting the environment.
"When Mike Leavitt came to Washington he had two bona fides with environmentalists: he was Mr. Clean Air in the Parks and he was a listener, Mr. Enlibra," says John Stanton, legislative counsel to former EPA Administrator Carole Browner and now director of the Parks In Peril program for Clear The Air.
"This rule-making shows he's violated both those principles, since he's trying to repeal congressional mandates for clearing park air and he's refusing to meet with key stakeholders involved," said Stanton. "Either he was always full of it or Washington has changed Mike Leavitt in a very fundamental way."