U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander speaks during a press conference in this file photo.U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander denounced deregulation this week, bucking a conservative colleague’s plan to weaken a key air quality rule.
“Pollution makes our Great Smoky Mountains more like the Great Smoggy Mountains,” Alexander said Monday evening on the Senate floor. “We like to see our mountains. And we like for the 9 million visitors who come visit us every year to stay a long time and spend a lot of money.”
The Tennessee Republican talked tourism – along with economic development and public health – after Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul sought to overturn an Environmental Protection Agency rule limiting wind-blown pollution from power plants.
“Air pollution blowing from one state into another makes our citizens sick, especially our younger Tennesseans and our older Tennesseans,” Alexander said.
For now, the Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to limit how much each state can pollute within neighboring states. The EPA fines power plants that release excess chemicals, including sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide.