Senator Robert Byrd’s recent foray into protectionism isn’t his first (Byrd’s Bad Idea Is Back, Aug 8). His meddling has produced other “Byrd Amendments” designed to protect the few at the expense of the many. One of his most notable was an amendment to the Clean Air Act of 1977.
Congress was looking for a way to decrease pollution emissions in response to growing public demand, so Senator Byrd offered an amendment requiring utility companies to install expensive scrubbers that helped clean the air. Great idea, right? Unfortunately, a tax on emissions would have been cheaper because it would have forced utilities to find the most efficient way to reduce pollutions. Maybe the companies would have installed the scrubbers anyway. Or, maybe they would have switched to the more expensive “clean” coal (coal with less sulfur dioxide, which was the real pollutant) from the cheaper “dirty” coal. We’ll never know. Senator Byrd’s amendment made sure of it.
The significance is that the dirty coal came from Senator Byrd’s home state of West Virginia while the clean coal came from the West. The result was that he protected the mining interests in his home state from competition by mandating that all utility
companies use the same pricey technology, incentivizing the utilities to use the cheaper, dirty coal at the expense of both consumers, who then had to pay more for their energy due to the scrubbers, and the producers of the clean coal in the West. If only Senator Byrd cared more for U.S. consumers, both those living in and out of West Virginia, than he does for favored lobbies.
Matt Hutchison
Atlanta, Georgia
I guess this is why he (and Ted Stevens, John Murtha, etc) keep getting elected. See this post about term limits. I'll admit I don't understand all the arguments against term limits, but this is a pretty good reason for them.
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