Just when you thought you'd heard all the Democrat ripoff schemes by urban politicians to abuse civil courts to enact de facto sales taxes on nonresidents nationwide, New York came up with another. Don't smoke and aren't a shooter? Worry anyhow - because this one from today's New York Post shows clearly how urban areas hard up for money will seek de facto nationwide sales taxes on your electric bill, all in the name of pollution reduction when their air meets federal pollution standards 360 days of the year. So push for partition from the incompatible Northeast and urban Midwest - and vote Republican now to stop abuse of the courts by mass-tort lawyers and greedy urban politicians. ========================================================== ATTORNEY General Eliot Spitzer's plan to seek enormous legal damages from coal-fired power plants in the Midwest and South will do next to nothing to clean up New York's air. Yes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cheering him on, saying, We are absolutely supportive of any state's effort to secure cleaner air for its citizens. But the EPA has already chosen to ignore the report of its own expert panel on this issue. Northeastern states have complained since the '80s that they cannot meet federal clean-air standards because Midwestern emissions drift east. The EPA (arbiter of states' Clean Air Act compliance) responded in 1994 by assembling scientists and state-level environmental officials into the Ozone Transport Assessment Group. OTAG reported in June 1997 that, while Midwestern emissions do drift east, the effect on Northeast smog is small compared with the effect of local sources. The expert panel also found that the sources of emissions that may be causing high smog levels cannot be traced and the number of smog sources outside the Northeast is so large that controlling them would be enormously expensive - without guarantee of any improvement in air quality. But EPA Administrator Carol Browner (the most political EPA head ever) disregarded OTAG's findings. Why? Enforcing a tight ozone standard would cost Northeastern states more than $9.6 billion a year. Browner decided to shift the cost from the more Democratic northeastern states over to the more Republican Midwestern and southern states. In September 1998, the EPA ordered 22 states to significantly reduce emissions of ozone precursors. More than half the reductions were to come from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania in the form of a crackdown on power-plant emissions. Faced with billions of dollars in unjustified costs, several of the Midwest states and power plants sued the EPA. A federal appeals court suspended the EPA rule last May, giving the Midwest more leverage in negotiating with the EPA on how the issue should be addressed. So now Spitzer has taken up the blame-shift gauntlet, planning to sue Midwest power plants _base_d on an obscure Clean Air Act provision requiring upgraded emissions-control equipment when other major investments are made in power plants. But the truth is, even if all Midwest power plants shut down, Northeast air quality would remain the same - that is, greatly improved. Fairfield County, greater New York's smoggiest county, now exceeds federal air-pollution standards fewer than five days a year, down from 30 days in 1980. Cleaner air is a laudable goal, but Spitzer's unfounded lawsuit and the EPA's blatant politics are enough to make you choke. ======================================================= <BDissident news - plus immigration, gun rights, Y2K <I Al Gore - in his own words</I How to avoid Clinton's coming draft <A HREF=
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