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Let’s Clear the Air and Make a Good Program Even Better

Release Date: 3/13/2002
Contact Information: Donna Heron (215) 814-5113

by
Christine Todd Whitman,
Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

There are few things more important than the air we breathe, and there is nothing more important than doing everything we reasonably can to ensure that it is clean and healthy. Recently, the President unveiled an aggressive new plan, Clear Skies, that will dramatically improve the air we all breathe.
In 1990, Congress and the President renewed our national commitment to clean air. Sweeping amendments to the Clean Air Act were signed into law because all of our national leaders recognized that the original Clean Air Act made a good start, but far more could be done. Indeed, far more needed to be done.
Today, President Bush recognizes that we can, and must, make more progress in the fight for clean air. It’s been 12 years since the last major improvements to the Clean Air Act and, once again, it is critical that we seize the moment and renew our commitment to clean air.
Three chief pollutants in America’s air - nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury - all contribute to serious health and environmental problems. While the 1990 amendments have worked well to reduce these pollutants, the current law does not move quickly enough to improve and enhance our air quality.
It’s time to build on the progress America has made in removing harmful pollutants from our air.
Last month President Bush unveiled our Clear Skies Initiative. I will be crisscrossing the country to build support for the program because it’s the most aggressive plan in a generation to rid our air of harmful pollutants. It deserves the bipartisan support of every member of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Here are some highlights of our plan:

The Clear Skies Initiative will, over the next decade, remove a total of 35 million more tons of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury from our air than will be eliminated by the current Clean Air Act.

In fact, over time, Clear Skies will reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide by 73 percent, of nitrogen oxides by 67 percent, and of mercury by 69 percent over today=s levels.

That means that Americans will experience tens of thousands fewer cases of breath-stealing asthma and other chronic respiratory afflictions. It means that choking summer smog will be reduced even faster. For families across America, it means thousands fewer cases of premature death.

Clear Skies will achieve these benefits more quickly and with greater certainty than under current law.
Clear Skies imposes mandatory limits on air pollution that will improve air quality not just in our cities, but in every region in the country.

That means that not only will the air in our cities be improved, the skies in our national parks will once again be clear and vacations with our families will be even better.

Clear Skies recognizes that pollution control technology has improved enormously since the last Clean Air Act amendments. We can take advantage of these technological breakthroughs to better and more quickly protect the health of our environment, ensure the health of our children and secure the health of our economy.

I am confident that Americans and the people who represent them in Congress will see the wisdom in the President’s Clear Skies Initiative. The simple truth is that America’s air will be cleaner, sooner, and at less cost to consumers under Clear Skies than under the current Clean Air Act. What’s at stake is nothing less than a healthy future for us and for our children and grandchildren.

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