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Guest Commentary: August 29, 2001
Close the Loopholes That Allow Power Plants
to Evade Emissions Reductions
The Honorable Susan Collins
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Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of air pollution, mercury contamination, and greenhouse gas emissions in the nation.
They are truly horrific polluters. Just one coal fired power plant can emit five times more of the pollutants that cause smog and acid rain than all industrial sources in Maine combined.
As the easternmost state in the nation, Maine is downwind of almost all power plants in the United States. Many of the pollutants emitted by these power plants mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and carbon dioxide end up in or over Maine.
Airborne mercury falls into our lakes and streams, contaminating freshwater fish and threatening our people's health. Carbon dioxide is causing climate change that threatens to alter Maine's delicate ecological balance. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides come to Maine in the form of acid rain and smog that damage the health of our people and of our environment. ...
Maine is tired of serving as the last stop for the nation's dirtiest power plant emissions.
As I said when [the Senate] introduced the Clean Power Act, it is time to end the "dirty air express." All power plants should meet the same standards, and those standards must protect people's health and the health of the environment. ...
Inexpensive electricity in other states has come at the expense of the health of people in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and other downwind states. At the same time, power-intensive industries in our states have been forced into a competitive disadvantage with competitors in states with dirty power.
After causing some of the nation's worst pollution problems for decades on end, the time has come for power plants to stop using loopholes to evade emissions reductions.
Note: The above commentary has been adpated from testimony given by Sen. Collins at a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, July 26, 2001.
 How to contact Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
Reading a past guest commentary? Click here for the most current one.
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