US air quality revision 'abandoned'

Plans by the outgoing Bush administration to relax the laws on emissions from US power plants in rural areas have been cancelled, it has been revealed.

Despite the change being one of the last featured on Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force agenda, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued an email notice this week that said the changes would no longer be pursued, reported the New York Times.

Changes in the air quality monitoring around these power plants would have equated to an increase in the emissions of polluting gases.

A spokesman for the EPA commented: "We didn't want to be faced with putting a midnight regulation in place. It was better to leave those incomplete rather than force something through."

This news comes after a group of governors from the north-east of the US urged the government not to go ahead with the plans earlier this month.