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Washington • The Republican-controlled House took another swipe Friday at the government's ability to control air pollution, passing a bill that would delay or scrap rules to reduce mercury and other harmful air emissions.

The 249-169 vote on the bill, favored by all three members of Utah's delegation, sent the legislation to the Senate.

The bill — originally introduced by Reps. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and John Sullivan, R-Okla. — would require President Barack Obama to set up a committee of Cabinet-level officials to evaluate the toll that a dozen-plus Environmental Protection Agency regulations would have on jobs, electricity, gasoline prices and competitiveness.

The regulations targeted in the legislation include everything from toxic air pollution to gases blamed for global warming and health-based limits for soot and smog-forming nitrogen oxides. The White House said this week that the bill would be vetoed because it would undermine or slow down important health protections.

Republican-backed measures added to the bill would extend its reach by nullifying regulations drafted by the Obama administration to control air pollution that blows into downwind states. They also would control for the first time toxic air emissions from some of the oldest coal-fired power plants.

Republicans said they were not out to gut clean-air protections, but instead wanted a phase-in that would allow further analyses and buy time for the economy to recover. However, they held little back in criticizing the nation's environmental agency and its director, Lisa Jackson.

"EPA is a rogue agency," said Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb. "They are producing rules in a fast and furious manner that greatly affect this nation's ability to generate electricity. This bill just wraps three of them together and says, 'Take a step back, do a cost analysis as the president has asked of agencies.'

"This agency, though, as headed by Ms. Jackson, has said to us ... that she will not ... follow the president's own executive order to look at the costs, the cost-benefit analysis."

A key opponent of the Republican bill, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said, "Under the guise of asking for more information, the [bill] delays two of the most crucial clean-air protections of the last decade. It is a blatant giveaway to polluters that will cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in preventable health care needs."

While the EPA does a cost-benefit analysis of its rules now, it is not as expansive as the examination required by the bill and doesn't look at the cumulative costs of all rules. Current law also bars the agency in some cases from considering costs, such as when it sets a health-based air pollution standard.

That changed when the House adopted a measure from Rep. Bob Latta, R-Ohio, that would allow the EPA to consider cost when it defines how much pollution is unhealthy to breathe.

Republicans, and industry trade groups, also alleged that the independent committee was necessary because the agency's own analysis can't be trusted.

In a letter to House members Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said that the bill would cut down "on the common problem of EPA conducting overly rosy analysis to justify the rule it wants to put in place."

Democrats said the bill didn't consider benefits at all.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich. and chief architect of the 1990 overhaul of the federal Clean Air Act, said the legislation would flip the EPA's priorities by putting cost ahead of health.

"The first decision would be cost ... and the second decision would be how the health of people would be affected." —

Utah environmentalists unhappy

Friday's passage riled Utah environmental advocates.

Brian Moench, founder of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, noted that the national health advocacy organization, Physicians for Social Responsibility, has estimated the measure would mean 34,000 unnecessary premature deaths each year by undermining the Clean Air Act.

"It is a huge disappointment for anyone who advocates for the public health," he said. "I don't know what in the world makes that good politics, but it's certainly bad public policy."

Mark Clemens, of the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club, noted that current law already requires a cost-benefit analysis and current policy requires a reduction of burdensome regulations.

"This is actually a pretty serious betrayal of human health and safety standards," he said.

Elaine Emmi, of Utah Interfaith Power and Light, a faith-based environmental advocacy group, searched for a positive message in the vote.

But she concluded: "I'm disappointed. There's a disconnect" between lawmakers in Washington and Utahns who are concerned about clean air and water, she said.

- Judy Fahys