The power to harm. (The Beat).

A report presented in April 2002 by former EPA regulatory affairs director Eric Schaeffer implicates air pollution produced by coal-burning power plants in an estimated 5,900 deaths, 14,000 cases of acute bronchitis, and 140,000 asthma attacks yearly. Schaeffer resigned his post in March in protest of what he calls "a White House that seems determined to weaken the rules [the EPA is] trying to enforce."

Eight utilities named in the report were all charged in 1999 with violations of an EPA regulation under the Clean Air Act that establishes the extent to which aging coal-fired power plants can be enlarged or upgraded before investments are made for pollution control devices. The utility industry has countered that no generally accepted models exist that can produce the kind of causation implied in the study.