WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency abandoned its push Wednesday to revise air-pollution rules in ways that environmentalists opposed, abruptly dropping measures that the Bush administration had spent years preparing.
One proposal would have made it easier to build a coal-fired power plant, refinery or factory near a national park. The other would have altered rules that govern when power plants must install anti-pollution devices. Environmentalists said it would result in fewer such cleanups.
EPA officials had been trying to finalize both before Barack Obama is sworn in as president Jan. 20. But an agency spokesman said Wednesday they were giving up, surprising critics and supporters of the measures.
“These two items are not things we’re going to get done in the next 48 days” before Obama’s inauguration, EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said. He said the EPA still supports the proposals, which have been in the works for at least three years.
Shradar said the agency was abiding by an administration order against “midnight regulations.” In addition, he said in an e-mail, the rule about when to install cleanup devices had been complicated by a recent court ruling. In July, a federal appeals court struck down the EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule, a pollution-control measure with which the new proposal was designed to work.
But William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said there may have been another motive. He said the EPA may have decided it would be futile to fight for the new regulations since Obama could have reversed them.
The press office for Obama’s transition team did not reply to a request for comment Wednesday evening.
“I think the administration’s getting beat down badly on environmental regulations” already, Becker said. “There was nothing to be gained by, you know, going out” with these new rules.
