The Winyah power plant near Georgetown nearly doubled its annual emissions of three toxic pollutants in the past nine years, according to a report released Thursday by a coalition of environmentalists. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said the report was done by a group whose members have a political agenda.

The Clear the Air coalition cited the Santee Cooper plant as among the worst in the country for increases in the amount of nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide discharged.

Santee Cooper said the accusation is unfair.

"In 1995, Winyah was shut down the entire year except for two weeks because of a turbine fire," said utility spokeswoman Laura Varn. If the 1995 numbers are removed, the plant's increase drops by half for carbon dioxide and nine-tenths for nitrogen oxide. Moreover, the amount of sulfur dioxide emitted by the plant decreases.

"It's important to extract fact from fiction," Varn said. "Santee Cooper meets or exceeds all state and federal environmental standards."

The report was released as the Senate begins subcommittee hearings on the Bush administration's Clear Skies Act, which contains provisions opposed by environmental groups.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, one of the coalition members, said the report relied on federal Environmental Protection Agency numbers and didn't break down days of operation for as many as 700 of the biggest polluters it included in the report.

"We will be looking into ways to verify this in future reports so that these types of discrepancies don't reoccur," said PIRG spokeswoman Kate Prevost.

"The Winyah plant still increasedits emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide if we take the period from 1996 to 2003," she said.

"The bottom line is that the people downwind of this power plant, the people most at risk, are they better off? The answer is no."

In the report, South Carolina's 13 power plants ranked 18th worst among the states in 2003 for the amount of sulfur dioxide discharged (a 15 percent increase), 21st in the amount of nitrous oxide (15 percent decrease) and 24th in carbon dioxide (48 percent increase).

The report found that nine of the state's 13 electric power plants increased carbon dioxide emissions from 1995 to 2003, including Winyah, Santee Cooper's Cross and Jefferies plants in upper Berkeley County and South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.'s Williams plant in Goose Creek. SCE&G's Canadys plant in Colleton County decreased its emissions.

Carbon dioxide emission is the primary cause of global warming, Prevost said. Nitrogen oxide causes smog. Nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, or soot, have been shown to cause asthma and other lung problems.

The toxins, along with the neurotoxin mercury, are the major pollutants released by power plants, she said.

A PIRG news release said the Clear Skies initiative's proposed "cap and trade" rules allow the dirtiest plants to delay cleanups by buying credits from newer and cleaner plants. It characterizes South Carolina plants as among the oldest and dirtiest in the nation.

"The Bush administration plan allows power plants to become dirtier and dirtier," Prevost said. "We urge Senators (Jim) DeMint and (Lindsey) Graham to do what's in the best interests of South Carolina."

"The president's plan caps the emissions of a thousand power plants nationwide, permanently cuts three kinds of emissions and forces reductions without lawsuits," said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton, whose boss sits on the subcommittee. "His belief is the Clear Skies Act clears up the air, clears out the courts and creates jobs."

Graham's spokesman, Kevin Bishop, said PIRG has a political agenda. "Senator Graham appreciates PIRG's interest in promoting a cleaner environment. If PIRG has a genuine concern for promoting clean energy, they will reverse course and support President Bush's and Senator Graham's efforts to build new nuclear power plants in the United States."

Varn said that by 2009, 90 percent of Santee Cooper's facilities will have state-of-the art environmental technology.

"We live here, too. I have a 17-month-old child, and I would not be working for a company if I thought they were hurting my child," she said.

"There are a lot of different reports," said Brian Duncan, SCE&G spokesman.

"We do and will comply with all regulations of state and federal agencies whose responsibility it is to look out for the health and safety of the public. We have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to meet changing environmental regulations in the past decade, and that is ongoing."