McHugh pushing for more action on acid rain

WASHINGTON — For several years, a congressional stalemate on global warming put the brakes on efforts to curb acid rain as well.

Now Congress could face the opposite problem: the fight against global warming is picking up so fast in Washington that the war on acid rain could be left behind.

That, at least, is the analysis from Rep. John M. McHugh, R-Pierrepont Manor, who introduced legislation last week to further cut power plant emissions that cause acid rain or contribute to its damage.

Mr. McHugh's bill would require a 75 percent cut in emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide — the two main contributors to acid rain — from 1997 levels by 2012, as well as a 90 percent cut in mercury emissions from current levels by 2012.

Mercury contributes to pollution of lakes and streams when it falls in acid rain, leaching pollutants from the ground.

Mr. McHugh said he wanted to be sure the debate on acid rain is not forgotten, now that global warming — which is caused by carbon dioxide — has gained a much higher spot in the national agenda. Both houses of Congress are pushing carbon-related bills, following President Obama's call to attack that problem aggressively.

Although Democrats in Congress also have supported reductions in acid rain pollutants, the congressman has a point, said Neil F. Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, which supports his bill as well as efforts to cut carbon dioxide.

"We view John's bill as keeping it front and center in the air debate," Mr. Woodworth said.

The danger of acid rain pollution has changed a bit in recent years, Mr. Woodworth said. While lifeless lakes were once the emphasis, experts now warn about acid rain's ability over time to deplete calcium in the soil. That is causing trees such as sugar maples, the mainstay of the syrup industry in New York, to become more vulnerable to diseases, he said.

About half the calcium in the Adirondack soil has already been lost, he said, and it takes decades to recover.

Similar legislation has not been announced in the Senate, but Sen. Charles E. Schumer has been supportive in the past. And Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., cosponsored a bill with Mr. McHugh last year to cut acid rain pollutants and carbon dioxide.

Pressure grew on Congress after the George W. Bush administration's efforts to slash pollutants hit legal trouble.

Environmental groups have called on New York lawmakers to put the pollution limits into law, rather than pursue regulations that the Bush administration tried to implement on its own and that officials say could take two years or more to revise. The Adirondack Council has been active on the issue as well.

The Bush administration proposed stricter limits on nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide in a regulation called the Clean Air Interstate Rule. The Adirondack Council had hailed it as a milestone that eventually could eliminate acid rain damage in the Adirondacks.

It would have cut emissions by as much as 60 percent. But it applied only to power plants in states east of the Mississippi, and a federal court found the emissions reduction inequitable. The court threw out the regulations, and the EPA announced earlier this month that it would rewrite them to satisfy the courts.

The regulations also did not have the force of law, as the administration proposed them through a formal rule-making procedure.