EPA, Energy heads narrowly avoid Senate panel's subpoenas

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department agreed late Wednesday to give the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee documents it requested on a Bush administration plan to relax pollution rules on some power plants, Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman James Jeffords, I-Vt., said Thursday.

The committee had prepared subpoenas for EPA Administrator Christie Whitman and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham if they did not agree to hand over the documents by Oct. 24.

"I hope we can work together more cooperatively in the future," Jeffords said. "I would like to avoid the kind of brinksmanship that we have had surrounding the production of the documents over the past several months."

The committee first began negotiating for release of files related to the Clean Air Act's "New Source Review" program about nine months ago, the Associated Press reported.

The committee wants to examine paperwork about the administration's decisions affecting future emissions under the Clean Air Act, the projected impact on air quality and enforcement efforts and the role the utility industry played in shaping the final rules for pollution controls that EPA plans to issue by year's end.