Steve Van Dyke, in the Tribune Oct. 29, tries to make us believe Big Coal is cleaning up its act. The record shows it has been dragged kicking and screaming into complying with pollution standards, all the while continuing to try to weaken air quality standards. According to the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 27, "The Bush administration is moving to adopt rules that would loosen pollution controls on power plants, by judging the plants on their hourly rate of emissions rather than their total annual output."

Van Dyke states "Currently, there is no federal standard for reducing carbon dioxide from coal-based power plants, natural gas turbines, cars, furnaces or other appliances that use fossil fuels." In fact, Big Coal, the EPA and the Bush administration are actively fighting federal and state standards for carbon dioxide.

The Bush EPA has been sued for violation of the Clean Air Act by 10 states, according to the New York attorney general.

In North Dakota, Big Coal and the state have fought over air quality standards in our national parks. "The Bush administration has agreed to ease clean air regulations for the state of North Dakota, a move that opens the door to the construction of coal fired power plants close to national parks and refuges." (The Environment News Service, Feb. 16, 2004)

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, "with the new compromise policy, North Dakota can alter 'the criteria within its pollution modeling software that dictate what baseline years are used and how the pollution data is averaged,' effectively bringing the state into compliance without actually reducing air pollution."

The above show a concerted effort by Big Coal and the Bush EPA, with the help of state government, to shirk responsibility to stop polluting the air of North Dakota.

Van Dyke goes on to proudly exclaim how much money is going into research to produce "clean coal" "$6 billion in clean coal research." Unfortunately, most of $6 billion is our tax money. If they were really concerned with air quality they would comply with the standards for air quality instead of fighting them. Even better, they could promote the production and distribution of really clean energy source, wind-based electricity.