I’m not talking about some dim bulb of a boss who unwittingly gums up the works (because, after all, what’s unusual about that?). I’m talking about Very Important People who are undermining the efforts of our nation’s top environmental cops to enforce the Clean Air Act. In the process, these same powerful folks are exhibiting a callous disregard for our health.

The saboteur in this case, broadly speaking, is the White House. According to the resignation letter of whistle-blower Eric Schaeffer, who was the chief of the EPA’s civil-enforcement office until he quit late last month, the White House “seems determined to weaken the rules we [EPA] are trying to enforce.”

The rules Schaeffer refers to are known as “new source review.” These provisions of the Clean Air Act require older coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities to upgrade pollution controls when they undergo major renovations or expansions that result in higher emissions. (See the Jan. 15 op-ed “Cheney and his energy buddies get dirty” for an earlier discussion of this matter.)

A couple of years ago, the EPA started filing lawsuits against power companies that the agency alleged were skirting new-source-review rules. The companies named in the suits, Schaeffer said in his resignation letter, emit 7 million tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide annually. A substantial portion of this soot- and acid rain-causing pollution would be cut if the companies were forced to follow new-source-review regulations.

That, Schaeffer says, would prevent thousands of premature deaths each year, as well as thousands of incidents of chronic bronchitis, thousands of emergency-room visits, and hundreds of thousands of lost work days. Further, it would diminish acid-rain attacks and lessen nitrogen deposits in bodies of water such as the Chesapeake Bay.

It’s important for Virginians that utilities-which are responsible for more pollution in our state than any other industry-stop spewing so much crud into the air we breathe. According to the EPA, pollutants from power plants contribute to the deaths of hundreds of Virginians each year. A study published earlier this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that soot from power plants and other sources increases some Virginians’ risk of lung cancer as much as living with a smoker.