Bush's 'Clear Skies' may be revived in the Senate

Bush's air pollution intiative that undermines the Clean Air Act, with its Orwellian name "Clear Skies,"  appeared dead in the U.S. Senate earlier this year.  But it may have some legislative life after all, at least according to a brief article in the New York Times today:

President Bush's moribund air pollution initiative got unexpected life on Thursday when the Environmental Protection Agency agreed to analyze competing legislation, satisfying a months-old request from the Senate.

Efforts by a Senate committee to advance the White House measure, known as Clear Skies, failed on a 9-to-9 vote in March after Senator Thomas R. Carper, a Delaware Democrat who voted against it, complained that the agency had been unwilling to examine his bill and several others, all of which set tighter emission standards than those in the administration measure.

Eight Democrats and one Republican, Senator Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island, voted against the White House plan while nine Republicans voted for it.

But in a House subcommittee hearing on Clear Skies on Thursday, James L. Connaughton, the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the agency had agreed to analyze all the competing bills.

While satisfying the request was no assurance that Mr. Carper would support Mr. Bush's initiative, it could persuade another Democrat, perhaps Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who has been under pressure from interest groups in his state to support the administration bill, to change his vote.

What are these interest groups in Montana supposedly pressuring Baucus?  A March article by Clear Air Watch's Frank O'Donnell gives us a hint:

In a blatant bid to buy Baucus’ vote, [Oklahoma Senator James] Inhofe introduced a new draft of the bill with special privileges for a Montana coal mine.

Fortunately, it appears that didn't work, at least by itself, since Baucus hasn't switched his vote. 

For more background on this issue, and why 'Clear Skies' is such couterproductive legislation, I strongly recommend reading O'Donnell's full article.