The Bush administration announced on May 29 that it would uphold a Clinton administration regulation reducing air pollutants from older power plants and industrial facilities that cause excessive smog in national parks.

The Clean Air Act, last authorized by Congress in 1990, directed the EPA to adopt regulations to reduce such pollutants. They were issued in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

In some parks, air pollution can reduce visibility by as much as 80 percent. The regulations affect facilities built between 1962 and 1977 that emit more than 250 tons of visibility-impairing pollutants per year. Such facilities are required to install pollution controls sufficient to bring them into compliance by the year 2013. 

-5/29/01