Statement Of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer On Bush Administration Proposal To Gut The Clean Air Act

The Bush Administration today issued a proposal that will dismantle the federal Clean Air Act. Every American should be outraged about what has unfolded in Washington today.

The Administration claims that it cares about clean air and says that this gutting of the Clean Air Act will not increase air pollution. This is simply not true.

Today's proposal is a sellout by the Bush Administration to the coal industry, the oil and gas industry and operators of dirty power plants. We in New York are already paying a steep price for power plant pollution in the form of acidified Adirondack lakes, tracts of dead forest land and increases in respiratory disease.

Under President Bush, the EPA has allowed itself to be transformed from a government agency with a statutory obligation to protect air quality and public health into little more than an agency that is turning its back on environmental protection.

I will pursue legal action in federal court to prevent the Administration from gutting the Clean Air Act.

Today's proposal is not only hard to swallow, but it will make it harder for all of us to breathe.
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