WASHINGTON — A Senate committee handed President Bush a setback Wednesday by failing to pass his key environmental initiative -- a rewriting of the Clean Air Act that would change air pollution rules for power plants.
Environmentalists have attacked the Bush administration's Clear Skies Act, saying it would grant some of the nation's biggest producers of acid rain, mercury and smog too much time to meet new emissions standards while failing to address global warming.
Bush has said his approach would reduce air pollution without unduly curbing economic expansion.
The White House lobbied for months to persuade a majority on the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee to support its plan. And committee Chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) postponed votes on the initiative three times in the last month as negotiations continued.
But on Wednesday, a panel vote on the Clear Skies measure deadlocked, 9-9. A Republican -- Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- joined with seven Democrats and Independent Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont in opposing the plan.
The impasse means the initiative is likely to remain bottled up in committee indefinitely.
In a speech to supporters in Ohio shortly after the vote, Bush indicated that his administration would not wait for Congress to take action.
"Congress is debating the Clear Skies initiative, but I'm going to act to get results," he told an audience in Columbus. "Clear Skies uses the power of free markets to reduce power plant pollution by 70% without disrupting the energy supply or raising electricity prices."
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce a rule today that would use a market-based system to limit air pollution in the Northeast. And early next week, the EPA is expected to unveil a second rule to limit mercury emissions from power plants nationwide.
The two rules incorporate some of the core provisions of the Clear Skies Act. But administration officials said they anticipated environmentalists and some utilities would file suit to block implementation.
Only legislation, they said, would ensure that the changes were permanent, ease their implementation and roll back some of the provisions of the Clean Air Act, the 1970 law that Bush seeks to alter.
"These rules provide some of the same benefits as Clear Skies, but they are not a substitute for effective legislation," Bush said in his Columbus speech. "To protect the environment, to protect jobs here in Ohio and around our country, Congress needs to get a good Clear Skies bill to my desk now."
