Government rule limits pollution testing

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration yesterday issued a new federal rule that limits pollution testing and will probably make it harder for state and federal regulators to monitor pollution from some industrial smokestacks.

Fewer air polluters are likely to be caught if government agencies measure emissions from smokestacks less often, which critics say will happen under the new rule limiting a tool used by environmental police.

Under the new rule, the Environmental Protection Agency will limit how often federal and state environmental officers can monitor some stacks. The rule applies to hundreds of companies whose smokestack emissions aren't monitored under specific EPA rules aimed at curbing such problems as acid rain and smog in cities with heavy air pollution.

In the late 1990s, the EPA would at times require large plants to monitor smokestacks more often than the twice every five years spelled out in the Clean Air Act if the companies weren't already being checked under other EPA provisions. Industry groups sued the EPA to stop requiring such additional monitoring, saying it wasn't legal for the agency to do more than the act required. The EPA agreed and yesterday issued the new rule, saying neither it nor state environmental agencies could require pollution checks more than twice every five years in those cases.

"This regulatory rollback would make oversight and enforcement by states, the EPA, and citizens extremely difficult, if not virtually impossible," Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Vermont said in an objection to a court settlement preceding the rule. EPA spokesman John Millett said the rule doesn't apply to most of the 15,000 major plants regulated under the Clean Air Act. "There are plenty of other means at the disposal of permitting authorities to address monitoring gaps," he added.