ACID RAIN
Acid rain is truly hitting us where we live, in and around one of the world's natural treasures – the Adirondack Park and its High Peaks region. Bigger than the Grand Canyon, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Yosemite National Parks combined, the Adirondack Park contains a stunning array of mountains, wild lands, forests, rivers, lakes, waterfalls, and deep gorges. I am humbled that an enormous portion of the Adirondacks is in my Congressional District.
But I am alarmed by the vast area of the Adirondack Mountains that is ravaged by the silent killer of acid rain – more than 20 percent of lakes there are already dead and 55 percent are highly acidic. Acid rain is literally eating away at our cultural heritage as our historic buildings and monuments are threatened. Each year, health problems such as chronic bronchitis and asthma are made worse by the acidic deposition. The severe damage to our citizens and economy is obvious.
Recent studies have shown the Adirondacks is a harbinger of what other areas will face, as forests and lakes in sensitive areas throughout the country are threatened by acid rain. In Virginia, thousands of miles of Appalachian trout streams are at risk of becoming chronically acidic, unable to support wild brook trout populations. In the southern Appalachians, acid rain is altering soil chemistry and leaching valuable nutrients from the soil. And since the 1960's, more than half of large-canopy red spruce in the Adirondack Mountains and the Green Mountains of Vermont, and approximately one-quarter of large-canopy red spruce in the White Mountains, have died as acid rain robs foliage of calcium and makes the trees vulnerable to freezing temperatures. Acid rain is reducing sugar maple trees in central and western Pennsylvania as well.
Because I recognize that we must take large steps, legislative, administrative and judicial, to bring a halt to the destruction caused by acid rain, I am an original co-sponsor of H.R. 227, the Acid Rain Control Act. This comprehensive legislation would cut emissions of sulfur dioxide by an additional 73 percent and nitrogen dioxide by 67 percent, from 2000 levels. The measure cuts other emissions, as well, including heavy metals. I believe
H.R. 227 is politically feasible, enforceable, compatible with a free-market economy and is necessary for progress on this urgent issue.
Further, in the previous Congress, I was a leading co-sponsor on the Clean Smokestacks Act of 2003. This legislation was even more aggressive as a comprehensive approach to cleaning up air pollution from the nation's power plants. It contained language to cut carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and mercury, and sought to modernize polluting power plants in the fairest way possible. This would have brought down overall emissions from power plants to levels that are cost effective and technologically feasible, while increasing incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Working to Control Mercury Emissions
Sweeney, McHugh, Boehlert Reiterate Need for Acid Rain Controls