NC Legislators, Businessmen Opposed To Bush Air Pollution Plan

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RALEIGH, N.C. - 'State legislators and businessmen say White House-backed clean-air legislation now being considered by Congress would weaken North Carolina's effort to clean up its own air. Members of Appalachian Voices Business League said Tuesday that the proposed federal Clear Skies Initiative would undercut North Carolina's own Clean Smokestacks Act, passed in 2002, which requires the state's 14 largest coal-fired power plants to cut emissions by more than federal law requires.

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"Increasingly, in the summer time Mount Mitchell disappears in the haze," said Philip Blumenthal, a Charlotte businessman whose family owns a conference center in the mountains. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has taken his fight against out-of-state polluters to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, urging that coal-fired plants in other states be forced to adhere to North Carolina's standards. Cooper has argued that pollution coming from outside North Carolina is keeping the state from meeting federal health-based standards for smog and soot in metropolitan areas. Last month, the EPA agreed to decide by this summer whether it should force power plants in 13 Eastern states to reduce the pollution blamed for obscuring views of the Smoky Mountains.

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Republican state Sen. John Garwood of Wilkes County said he supports the state's tougher stance on pollution because "I am for clean air and I am particularly for it in western North Carolina, where I live." State Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-Buncombe, said the state law took 18 months to pass and was unique because it brought together both major parties, environmentalists and business "to take a step for the environment far beyond what was required."

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