Bush announced an environment legislative initiative titled Clear Skies. The Clear Skies proposal's stated goals were to reduce three pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and mercury. Clear Skies was to use a market based system by allowing energy companies to buy and trade pollution credits. The president argued that since Clear Skies would use a market based system, millions of tons of pollution would be eliminated when compared to the Clean Air Act. However, the president's critics argued that the Clear Skies policy would weaken provisions in the Clean Air Act. The main provisions of the 1970 Clean Air Act were to control air pollution on a national level and an initiative program called New Source Review (NSR). The NSR initiative would require power plants to upgrade to anti-pollution technologies before they can expand existing facilities and add new technologies. The Clear Skies initiative proposed by the Bush administration main intention was to remove the New Source Review provision and deregulate some of the standards that the Clean Air Act required energy facilities to meet. The proposed removal of the NSR prompted nine northeastern states to file suit in federal court to prevent the new ruling. Advocates against Clear Skies viewed the removal of NSR as a weakening of existing laws and an “assault on the Clean Air Act”. Environmental advocates and their political allies would eventually prevail in defeating the Clear Skies initiative. Global environmental policy President Bush refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, citing fears of negative consequences for the U.S. economy. Bush also cited that developing countries like India and China were exempt from Kyoto's requirements as a reason for his opposition. When President Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, many of his critics alleged that he made his decision on ideology rather than on science. Suzanne Goldenberg from the Guardian wrote the Bush years are seen "as concerted assault, from the administration's undermining of the science". Bush's own Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said the decision to walk away from Kyoto was "the equivalent to 'flipping the bird,' frankly, to the rest of the world". Also, Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change said the idea of a head of state putting the science question on the table was horrifying. Bush's critics included Jonathon Dorm, Earth Policy Institute and NASA scientist James Hansen. Dorm contended that the administration made a