Obama Revokes Bush Power Plant Pollution Freedom

A memo issued in the closing days of the Bush administration by Stephen Johnson, then an officer in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was revoked today by Lisa Jackson of the EPA, following a request by the Sierra Club.

The memo said that when power stations are authorised, the emission of carbon dioxide, a significant cause of climate change, need not be controlled.

President Obama has now held different views twice on environmental matters, compared with those of the Bush administration.

The revocation was warmly welcomed by environmentalists as the end of President Bush’s attitude to global warming and a move to controlling carbon emissions.

An EPA statement said that the memo will be energetically reassessed for compliance with the Clean Air Act and the Obama administration’s intended plans to curb global warming.

Jackson promised that the review will be unbiased and open minded and industry interests and the public will have the opportunity to express their opinions on how it affects all areas of the nation.

We plan to carry out our job of safeguarding the environment and health, she added.

David Bookbinder of the Sierra Club said that increasing the number of coal facilities was always a wrong decision and this announcement will make it worse.

The power sector is attempting to get permits for about 100 coal fired sites with no restrictions on harmful emissions, which this announcement will make less likely.

He added that the revocation frees the Obama administration from President Bush’s energy policies.

In another piece of news, President Obama made a loan stimulus package into law yesterday.

The package does not include a $50bn energy programme for carbon storage after capture, which was taken out during the last reading, but $3.4bn is available for clean coal techniques.

John Thompson of the Coal Transition Project believes that emissions from fossil fuels could have been addressed if the loan guarantees had been left in place and more jobs would have become available.

He believes that these types of fuel will not just disappear so we must have the ability to cut and eradicate carbon emissions as well as storing it.