LAND MANAGERS, ACTIVISTS WORRY LONGVIEW OFFSETS ARE BAD PRECEDENT

Federal land managers at the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service, along with environmentalists, say a clean air permit for the West Virginia-based Longview power plant may set a terrible precedent by giving plants "paper" offsets that do not guarantee any reduced sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution. A Forest Service source says the Longview permit marks the first time land managers agreed that such paper offsets would be permissible, rather than real offsets that guarantee reductions. Because Longview, a...