Bush=environment goes up in smoke

N.Y. joins lawsuit against Bush air pollution regulations
Eric Durr The Business Review

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has joined eight other state attorneys general in a lawsuit challenging the Bush administration's clean air regulations.




The regulations gut a key provision of the federal Clean Air Act. The Administration's action represents the first major weakening of the landmark federal environmental law since it was signed into law by President Nixon in 1970, said Spitzer spokesman Marc Violette.



The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.



"The Bush Administration has taken an action that will bring more acid rain, more smog, more asthma, and more respiratory disease to millions of Americans," Spitzer said.



"This action by the Bush Administration is a betrayal of the right of Americans to breathe clean, healthy air. I join my colleagues from other states to challenge this assault on the Clean Air Act and continue the fight to achieve the goals that the law intended," he said in a written statement







Joining New York in the lawsuit are the states of Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.