BILL WEAKENING CLEAN AIR ACT DIES IN SENATE COMMITTEE

Tri-Partisan Group of Senators Nix Corporate Polluter Plan

Statement by John Walke, NRDC Senior Attorney

WASHINGTON (March 9, 2005) -- In a 9-9 vote, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today rejected a bill (S. 131) that would have weakened Clean Air Act public health safeguards and postponed deadlines for industrial polluters to significantly reduce their toxic emissions. Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.I.) and Sen. James Jeffords (Vt.), an independent, joined the committee's seven Democrats in voting against the bill.

Below is a statement by John Walke, clean air project director, NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council):

"Today senators on both sides of the aisle stood up for the American people against a corporate scheme to weaken federal law and delay the day we all can enjoy breathing clean air.

"If the Senate wants to pass an air pollution bill, that bill would have to clean the air faster than the current Clean Air Act. The bill that died today, which was crafted by industrial polluters, failed that basic test. What's more, it would have worsened global warming by locking the electric power industry into investments that exacerbate, rather than control, global warming pollution."