EPA backs off changes in air pollution rules

WASHINGTON —  The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday abandoned its push to revise two air pollution rules in ways that environmentalists had long opposed, abruptly dropping measures that the Bush administration had spent years preparing.

One proposal would have made it easier to build a coal-fired power plant, refinery or factory near a national park.

The other would have altered the rules that govern when power plants must install antipollution devices. Environmentalists said it would have resulted in fewer such cleanups.

EPA officials had been trying to complete both before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. But an agency spokesman said Wednesday they were giving up, surprising critics and supporters.

“These two items are not things we’re going to get done in the next 48 days” before Obama’s inauguration, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said. He said the agency was abiding by an administration order against “midnight regulations.”

In addition, Shradar said in an e-mail, the rule about when power plants install cleanup devices had been complicated by a recent court ruling. In July, a federal appeals court struck down the EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule, a measure with which the new proposal was designed to work.

The proposal on parks would have changed the rules for new plants being built nearby.

Computer models project how bad pollution would be over three-hour and 24-hour periods to guard against short-term increases in pollution from smokestacks. The EPA wanted to alter the rule to focus on air pollution averages over a year.

Half of the EPA’s regional administrators had formally dissented on the rule. But the agency had said it was on the verge of becoming law.

The other rule concerned the agency’s New Source Review process, which dictates when existing power plants must implement additional pollution control measures.

The question is: How should this pollution be measured? Now what matters is an annual pollution total. The EPA had sought to substitute a different test, using the amount of pollution produced in an hour.