With slim chances of passing in Congress, a controversial change to the designation of new source review is now snaking its way through the regulatory system. The regulation would allow power plants to make modifications to existing equipment without installing new pollution technology if their hourly emissions rates do not increase. By changing the way power plant emissions are calculated from an annual output to an hourly output, plants would be allowed to pollute more per year by operating for longer hours. From the New Standard: "This latest attack by the Bush administration to dismantle [New Source Review] comes from a new angle," the Sierra Club’s Nat Mund explained in a statement Friday. "Simply put, a power utility could refurbish a plant so that it does not release more pollution per hour, but could double the operating time thus releasing more pollution over the course of the year. . . ." "This is the Clean Air Act we're talking about, not the Hourly Efficiency Act," [National Environmental Trust Vice President John] Stanton said in a statement. "A plant can be more efficient, and yet a bigger polluter if it runs for more hours. That means more soot and smog pollution, more asthma attacks, and more deaths." Earlier this year, a federal court rebuffed states seeking more stringent enforcement of New Source Review. The ruling also required the EPA to clarify its New Source Review-related rule making, leading EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson to propose the new rules, the agency said in announcing the changes. In August, the Natural Resources Defense Council obtained and leaked an internal EPA document warning that the rule now being proposed could seriously undermine agency enforcement actions across the country, the Washington Post reported. House leaders dropped a nearly identical measure from the recently passed Gasoline for America’s Security Act. The case is an example of the way industry interests abuse the regulatory process in order to get a second bite at the apple, taking controversial policies they cannot win in Congress and sneaking them into agency regulations. The proposed rule was published today in the Federal Register and will be open for public comment through Dec. 19.