A coalition of environmental groups released a report yesterday claiming that Texas’s voluntary program for cutting air pollution from old industrial plants — a centerpiece of Gov. George W. Bush’s environmental record — has been a failure. In the first year of the Bush-backed program, emissions from the plants were cut by only about 0.3 percent, said the enviros. The state legislature should replace the voluntary program with requirements for emissions cuts, said Jim Marston, Texas director of Environmental Defense and lead author of the report. But Ralph Marquez, appointed by Bush to head the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, said it’s too early to assess the program’s effectiveness.
