With a new president-elect only days away, the Bush administration is racing to push through 11th-hour, polluter-friendly rules.
The Washington Post flagged some of the most egregious examples in a front-page story, Friday.
The latest to pop up is what the Bush EPA opaquely describes as the “increment modeling” rule. It is now under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Despite its inpenetrable name, this rule is highly controversial: It would make it easier for electric power plants and other big smokestack sources of air pollution to site near national parks and wilderness areas. It would do this by changing the way companies estimate the impact of their pollution on the parks and wilderness areas — essentially pretending there would be less damage than would really occur.
This is an extremely duplicitous rule change. (How many people know what “increment modeling” means?)
It really ought to be called the “dirty air in the parks” rule.
