Since then, the Bush Administration's "Clear Skies Initiative" has been officially unveiled. As appeared would be the case in mid-2002, it would establish a "trading" program in which the government explicitly approves emissions by polluters that would cause acid rain, smog, fine particle pollution, and contamination of the food supply with the toxic chemical mercury. Polluters could swap units of smog, acid rain, or fine particles--and the death and illness that they represent--like so many head of cattle or shares of stock. Acid rain, and the clouds of fine particles that accompany it, could move from one state to another and smog from a downtown neighborhood to the suburbs. Mercury could be stockpiled for future release, like wheat in silos or automobile transmissions in warehouses, ready for "just-on-time" delivery.
Curtis Moore, coeditor and publisher of the Health & Clean Air Newsletter (
http://healthandcleanair.org), was Republican counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works from 1978-1989, where he worked on a wide range of environmental laws and issues. He is also the coauthor with Alan Miller of Green Gold: Japan, Germany, the United States, and the Race for Environmental Technology, as well as numerous articles in periodicals ranging from Ambio to the New York Times. As a consultant on international environmental policies and technologies, his clients have included Tokyo Electric Power, the California Air Resources Board, and Greenpeace.This Article is the first of several and is the result of a study I conducted over a six-month period starting in mid-2002 after it became apparent that President George W. Bush intended to seek repeal of several cornerstone provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA) in favor of "trading," an approach that confers on refineries, power plants, factories, and other polluters the right to pollute.
