 A federal appeals court sided with 14 states today and blocked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from going forward with regulations that activists say would lead to more air pollution from the nation’s power plants and factories. It rules that the EPA’s changes violated the federal Clean Air Act.
Spitzer: ‘Enormous victory’ “This is an enormous victory for clean air and for the enforcement of the law and an overwhelming rejection of the Bush administration’s efforts to gut the law,” said New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who led the suit for the states. “It is a rejection of a flawed policy.” “It has been estimated that more than 20,000 Americans die prematurely each year from power plant pollution,” he added. “As a result of this decision, that number should be reduced.” Clean Air Act Enforced to Power Plants and Factories Due to this law, over 800 coal-fired power plants and up to 17,000 factories nationwide must now install the most advanced pollution controls whenever they are modified to cause “any physical change” that increases the amount of air pollutants.
Former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman said in her book that she was against the rule — the idea for which came from Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force — when she was in office. “I must say that I’m glad they weren’t able to finish the work until after I was home in New Jersey,” she wrote in “It’s My Party, Too,” after she left the Bush administration in 2003. | 
