Power plants get break on pollution controls

WASHINGTON -- - The Bush administration has exempted thousands of older power plants, refineries and factories from having to install costly clean air controls when they modernize with new equipment that improves efficiency but increases pollution.

In a major new revision to its air pollution rules recently, the Environmental Protection Agency will allow up to 20 per cent of the costs of replacing each plant's production system to be considered "routine maintenance."

Maintenance doesn't require costly anti-pollution controls, according to agency documents obtained by Associated Press.

A typical power plant has more than one "process unit" containing a boiler, generator, turbine and other equipment.

In the case of a 1,500-megawatt plant with two 750-megawatt units that cost $1 billion (U.S) to replace, each could be upgraded $200 million at a time, agency officials and outside experts say.

The new rule signed yesterday by EPA's acting administrator, Marianne Horinko, represents a fundamental shift away from a long-problematic 1971 maintenance standard.

"We're going to really, I think, create certainty going forward for industrial facilities, by spelling out what specific replacement is exempt," Horinko said.

Until now, operators have been required to add more pollution-cutting devices if they do anything more than "routine maintenance" on a plant that causes emissions to increase significantly. The electric utility and oil industries have been lobbying the administration for the changes, saying the costs prohibit them from making energy-efficiency improvements.