Ex-EPA Head Criticizes Bush Air Plan

WASHINGTON (AP) - New proposals to ease air pollution requirements on power plants will produce dirtier air and harm the public's health, the woman who headed the Environmental Protection Agency ( news - web sites) during the Clinton administration said Tuesday.



Former EPA Administrator Carol Browner accused the Bush administration of misleading lawmakers by suggesting that the agency during her tenure sought a similar easing of requirements on power plants in 1996 and again in 1998.

While the EPA looked at possible changes in the clean air rules, known as "new source review," Browner said at a Senate hearing, "we didn't support the changes. ... We didn't adopt them."

In a letter last week to Sen. John Edwards ( news, bio, voting record), D-N.C., who held Tuesday's hearing, Christie Whitman, the current EPA administrator, suggested many of the proposed changes now being pursued were proposed first by Browner in 1996. The head of the EPA's air pollution control office reiterated the claim at Tuesday's hearing.

"Taking (public) comments on ideas should not be taken as support," Browner insisted. She said such changes were later dropped because she determined they would harm air quality.

Jeffrey Holmstead, chief of the EPA's air office, said he was caught off guard by Browner's testimony. "I quite frankly was surprised and I'm not sure what to make of it," he said.