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 EPA Enacts Long-Awaited Rule  To Improve Air Quality, Health
 
 By Rick Weiss
 
  The Environmental Protection Agency enacted a broad new rule yesterday aimed at significantly reducing levels of health-damaging ozone and atmospheric soot caused by emissions from power plants in eastern and midwestern states.
 
 The long-awaited Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR)  --  viewed as the most substantial tightening of air quality standards since the Clean Air Act was last amended in 1990  --  is expected to save thousands of lives each year and prevent the loss of millions of workdays missed annually because of pollution-related heart attacks, asthma and other health problems.
 
 The rule, to be phased in over the next decade, sets limits  for the release of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power-plant smokestacks in 28 states and the District. To meet the goals, many plants will have to install new scrubbers and other emissions-capturing equipment. 
 
 Plants that cannot meet their deadlines will be  allowed to buy credits from those that are ahead of schedule  --  an approach that the industry and environmentalists alike had sought as a way to achieve cost-effective regional reductions.
 
 "The action we are taking will require all 28 states to be good neighbors, helping states downwind by controlling airborne emissions at their source," said EPA Acting Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, whom President Bush has nominated to head the agency.
 
 The District and its surroundings are among the dirtier regions of the country, but 70 percent of the pollution on the worst summer days arrives from coal-fired power plants and heavy industry farther west. The new rule is expected to produce gradual improvement, but meeting the new standards will be difficult without further measures, including reducing pollution from vehicles, officials have said.
 
 Nitrogen oxides react with sunlight in warm air to make ground-level ozone, also known as smog, which causes respiratory problems and damages crops. Sulfur dioxide makes acid rain, which has been wreaking environmental havoc in the East for many years. Both pollutants are key contributors to fine particulate soot, which causes a variety of respiratory ailments and contributes to the haze that has increasingly marred views in some of the nation's most pristine areas.
 
  Under the rule, sulfur dioxide pollution is expected to decline by 73 percent over the next decade, compared with 2003 levels, EPA officials said. Oxides of nitrogen are expected to drop by 61 percent.
 
 All told, the EPA calculated, the rule will prevent 17,000 premature deaths; 1.7 million lost workdays; 500,000 lost school days; 22,000 non-fatal heart attacks; and 12,300 hospital admissions annually by 2015.
 
 Yesterday's action ends  years of efforts to deal with the fact that many eastern states have been unable to meet Clean Air Act standards because of emissions from power plants located in states upwind. The EPA determined last year that 160 million people in 450 counties in 32 states were living in areas that were out of compliance for airborne particulates and smog.
 
 Officials have said they will release a rule next week restricting mercury, the other major power plant pollutant. That rule is considered to be far more controversial and likely to be challenged in court.
 
 The CAIR and mercury rules, which had been languishing at the EPA, rose to sudden prominence Wednesday when a congressional committee did not advance the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" initiative. The legislation  --  which  Bush had argued was superior to yesterday's administrative action, in part because it was less likely to get hung up in a tangle of lawsuits  --  was widely disparaged by environmental groups as a fundamental weakening of the Clean Air Act.
 
 By contrast, several environmental groups applauded CAIR.
 
 "EPA's action is a big breath of fresh air for the millions of Americans across the eastern U.S. suffering from unhealthy particulate and smog pollution," said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense.
 
 While industry representatives grumbled that they would have preferred the president's bill, several expressed general support for CAIR, which grants them more time to cut emissions than many environmentalists had demanded.
 
 "CAIR should help clarify and streamline a contradictory and overlapping mess of existing regulations that plague industry and regulators," said Bryan Brendle, director of air quality for the National Association of Manufacturers. "Business planners need such certainty, and flexibility, when considering investments in technological upgrades that further clean our air, improve efficiency and boost economic growth."
 
 Some environmental groups warned, however, that Americans may not realize the full benefits of the rule until 2022 because the cap-and-trade program allows utilities to bank pollution credits. The federal government's acid rain program  --  which has used a cap-and-trade program to cut sulfur dioxide emissions for the past 15 years  --  will not meet its 2000 emission targets until 2008, said John Stanton, senior counsel at the advocacy group Clear the Air, who called CAIR "too little, too late."
 
 Even without that complication, the EPA predicts that several major municipalities  --  including Washington  --  are unlikely to achieve compliance with the Clean Air Act by the time the rule takes full effect in 2015.
 
 "Many states will need additional cleanup to protect their citizens," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.
 
 Agency officials have calculated that the benefits of CAIR will outweigh the costs to industry and consumers by as much as 25 to 1. According to the EPA, the rule could save $100 billion a year in health costs and $2 billion in yearly "visibility benefits," including improved views at national parks. The agency has estimated the cost to industry at $4 billion a year.
 
  The agency has also said the new rule is not expected to increase retail electricity prices or homeowner utility bills noticeably until at least 2020.
 
 Staff writers Shankar Vedantam and Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.
 
   

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