Res. No. 1086 Title Resolution calling upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the new regulations for power plants, refineries, and factories allowing an increase in the pollutants discharged into the air that will result in a health hazard risk to Americans. Body By Council Members Foster, Addabbo, Barron, Clarke, Comrie, Gentile, Gerson, Koppell, Lopez, Martinez, Quinn, Sanders, Sears, Vann, Yassky and Nelson Whereas, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued new regulations that will allow power plants, refineries and 17,000 factories across the country to increase the pollution they discharge into the air, such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, which cause respiratory illness and dump acid rain on forest and wildlife; and Whereas, The Clean Air Act of 1970 exempted old power plants from the emission standards of the 1970 law, but added in 1977 a "New Source Review" program which required companies to install pollution-control equipment on old smokestacks; and Whereas, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new regulations remove the "New Source Review" program; and Whereas, Most of the old factories and coal-burning plants are in the Midwest, and the prevailing winds carry their exhaust eastward to New York; and Whereas, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has asked other states to join him in a lawsuit to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the new regulations, an stated, "If allowed to stand, this flagrantly illegal rule will ensure that, under the watch of the Bush administration, Americans will breathe dirtier air, contract more respiratory disease and suffer more environmental degradation caused by air pollution"; now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the Council of the City of New York calls upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to revoke the new regulations for power plants, refineries, and factories allowing an increase in the pollutants discharged into the air that will result in a health hazard risk to Americans.