''We are now doing to smokestacks what we did to tailpipes," said Stephen Johnson, the EPA administrator. Johnson predicted the regulations would spur greater technology innovation.
''We want to remove any unnecessary regulatory obstacles," he said. ''We're focused on practical, achievable results that don't get delayed by years of litigation."
The EPA proposal would let utilities calculate emissions on an hourly, rather than annual basis. It affects the nation's 600 coal- burning power plants, which represent 55 percent of the nation's electric generating capacity. Industry officials say the plants are getting cleaner. But they continue to produce millions of tons of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide blamed for smog, acid rain, and soot, and other fine particles that lodge in people's lungs and cause asthma and other respiratory ailments.
The EPA ''is embracing industry-backed loopholes that undermine basic protections for millions of Americans breathing harmful smokestack pollution," said Vickie Patton, an attorney who handles air quality issues for Environmental Defense, an advocacy group.
Proponents say other EPA and state regulations would prevent that from happening. ''The heavy lifting of emissions control is already ensured by tough new EPA rules on interstate emissions and mercury control," said Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which represents electric utilities.
Utilities are legally obligated to continue to cut their pollution, said Dan Riedinger, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, another trade group. He said it was ''a gross distortion of the facts" to conclude that power plants would increase pollution.
But an analysis of EPA data by Environmental Defense indicates that many East Coast power plants won't install new controls to clean up sulfur dioxide by 2015, despite the EPA's predictions.
