The Attorney General in New York has recently led the fight against any softening of laws on air pollution. He’s even taken on the administration in Washington. Now he’s setting his sights across the border where pollution from Canada is affecting his state. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
Transcript
The Attorney General in New York has recently led the fight against any softening of laws on air
pollution. He’s even taken on the administration in Washington. Now he’s setting his sights
across the border where pollution from Canada is affecting his state. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:
New York’s Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has taken on the White House and big air polluters in
the U.S. Now he’s filing a complaint with the Environmental Commission set up under NAFTA.
He wants the commission to look into whether coal fired generating plants in Ontario violate any
Canadian laws.
That move is not sitting well with authorities across the border. Canada’s environment minister,
David Anderson, says he welcomes the challenge, but says Spitzer should be cleaning up his own
backyard first.
“His plants in New York aren’t little innocent neighborhood Dairy Queens. These are major
emitters of pollution.”
Ontario’s environment minister, Chris Stockwell, admits that Ontario doesn’t have a perfect
record, but he, too, says Spitzer shouldn’t be doing any finger pointing.
“The Americans have states where 90% of their energy is coal. Now who’s embarrassed,
Americans or Canadians?”
Ontario has pledged to shut down its coal-fired generators by 2015.
But that isn’t soon enough for Spitzer. If he proves his case, the environmental commission could
impose penalties against the province.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.