For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
February 27, 2003
Statement by the President
In my State of the Union address, I urged Congress to enact my
aggressive and innovative plan to cut air pollution, the Clear Skies
initiative. Clear Skies will cut power plant emissions by 70 percent
-- much further, faster, more cost-effectively and with more certainty
than current law.
Today, with the reintroduction of my legislation, Clear Skies takes
an important step towards delivering health and environmental benefits
to Americans. I am pleased that Chairman Tauzin and Chairman Barton
have introduced Clear Skies in the House and Chairman Inhofe and
Chairman Voinovich have introduced it in the Senate.
In the last 30 years, America has dramatically improved air
quality. Clear Skies is the next step in this positive trend towards
bringing cleaner air and better health to more of our citizens. We
have learned a lot about what approaches work best, and now is the time
to put those lessons to use.
Clear Skies builds on the proven success of our most effective
clean air program -- the acid rain reduction program, which
significantly reduced acid rain in the Northeast. Clear Skies expands
this program so that in the next decade alone, we will remove 35
million more tons of pollution from the air than would the current
Clean Air Act. This will also help protect our forests, lakes, streams
and coastal waters from acid rain, nitrogen and mercury degradation.
And Clear Skies will do this through the use of a market-based system
that guarantees results while keeping electricity prices affordable for
Americans.
I thank Chairmen Tauzin, Inhofe, Barton and Voinovich for their
leadership on this important environmental initiative. Clear Skies
represents cost-effective pollution reductions that make sense for the
environment and the economy. Administrator Whitman and I look forward
to working with Congress to deliver the benefits promised by passage of
Clear Skies legislation.
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