EPA drops plan to ease pollution limits near parks

The Bush administration has abandoned its effort to ease air-quality restrictions near national parks. The Environmental Protection Agency planned to change the way air pollution was measured near power plants and other industrial pollution sources. Environmentalists had criticized the proposed regulations, because they would have allowed for much more pollution.

Felicity Barringer writes in The New York Times that the agency has been working on the proposal for weeks, trying to get it through before the end of the Bush presidency, despite "the White House [saying] months ago that no new rules should be imposed in the administration’s last days." But in the end, “We didn’t want to be faced with putting a midnight regulation in place,” EPA spokesperson Jonathan Shradar told her. “It was better to leave those incomplete rather than force something through.” (Read more) For our most recent post on this topic, click here.