Clean Sky rollbacks forstalled by court

At least some in our judiciary remember their job decription. In a sharply worded decision:

A federal appeals court blocked the Bush administration's four-year effort to loosen emission rules for aging coal-fired power plants, unanimously ruling yesterday that the changes violated the Clean Air Act and that only Congress could authorize such revisions.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with officials from 14 states, including New York, California and Maryland, who contended that the rule changes -- allowing older power plants, refineries and factories to upgrade their facilities without having to install the most advanced pollution controls -- were illegal and could increase the amount of health-threatening pollution in the atmosphere.

Practically the only cheering trend I see these days is more and more state officials willing to stop up and challenge federal irresponsibility. The industry response is predictable.

Segal said the ruling will make it more costly for plants to operate. "This is a missed opportunity for reform that would have made it easier to improve power plant efficiency and workplace safety, and that's bad news for consumers and the environment," he said. "We believe it is a step backwards for the protection of air quality in the United States."

What does that even mean? Typical corporate doubletalk and classic Bushspeak. He claims the proposed decimation of environmental controls would have exactly the opposite of its reasonably expected effect. One wonders how they get people to believe that increasing pollution contributes to workplace safety. Maybe it's the way they say it...

Update: Left of Center has more thoughts, along with contact information if you would like to follow his example and let the EPA spokesman know how you feel about this decision. The graphic on his post alone is worth clicking over for.