|
Protecting the Nation From Air Pollution
Since the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, Americans have been slowly but surely moving toward cleaner air. Human exposure to many dangerous pollutants has declined significantly due to federal, state, and local enforcement of the Act. In the intervening years, thousands of studies have confirmed that air pollution is more harmful at lower levels than we appreciated in 1970, and that more people are vulnerable to its impact.
Unfortunately, as we demonstrate in the American Lung Association State of the Air: 2004, our air is still too polluted in too many places, putting too many of the nation's people at risk. Despite what we know and what we've been able to accomplish, we still have too many places with unhealthful air.
The American Lung Association is greatly concerned about roadblocks to continued progress toward cleaner air. Threats come from two areas: proposals to roll back key provisions of the Clean Air Act and continued delays in carrying out the existing provisions.
The Clean Air Act requires the states and the federal government
"to protect and enhance the quality of the Nation's air resources so as to promote the public health and welfare and the productive capacity of its population." 1
This act has led to a significant reduction of almost all major air pollutants since 1970.2 The Clean Air Act has clearly been one of America's most successful environmental laws.3
 THE CLEAN AIR ACT: UNDER FIRE
The Clean Air Act is seriously at risk. Here's how:
-
Last year, EPA reversed a provision in the Clean Air Act that would have required 17,000 of the nation's oldest, dirtiest power plants, oil refineries and other industrial facilities to meet the same emission standards as newly built ones when they are rehabilitated or modernized.
-
EPA is running seriously behind in carrying out key steps to protect public health, as required by the Act.
-
The Administration and members of Congress are proposing new laws that would roll back existing requirements of the Act, and allow more pollution, lasting over a longer period of time, than the Act would permit.
To learn about what this means to you, read on.
Easing up on Polluters: Changes to New Source Review
In 2003, EPA took two major steps that cut the legs out from under a provision of the Clean Air Act called New Source Review. New Source Review (NSR) is a process designed to ensure that communities with unhealthful levels of air pollution don't get more polluted when a new source of pollution comes to the community -- like a new industrial facility or an existing facility that is renovated in ways that enable it to put out more pollution.
Back in 1999, EPA charged that many electricity-generating utilities had failed to comply with the requirements of NSR, because they increased emissions of hazardous pollutants at their coal-fired plants without taking the required steps to clean them up. EPA took dozens of them to court and initiated administrative action against others. A few of the cases have already been settled.
Then in 2002 and 2003, the rules changed. In two sweeping new regulations, EPA rewrote the NSR provisions, providing huge loopholes to industry that would allow polluters to significantly increase pollution in existing plants without having to clean up the pollution. These are the changes EPA made: EPA will allow plants to cherry-pick two years of the last 10 to serve as their baseline for deciding if they need to clean up. Plants that will increase more than one pollutant now can avoid having to reduce the rest their pollutants if they clean up just one of them.
If the plant had been required to install new equipment to reduce emissions within the last decade, EPA's loopholes exempt the plant from having to install any new equipment to reduce pollution for up to 10 years, even if the processing equipment is completely replaced. As technology advances, new methods that could result in even fewer emissions wouldn't even be considered during that decade.
EPA severely limited the actions states and local governments can take to stop transported pollution. This would prohibit states from attacking the problem of ozone blown into their area from upwind sources, as the New England and Mid-Atlantic states did in the mid-1990s, which set the stage for the first strong rules to clean up power plants during the Clinton Administration.
Under possibly the most damaging set of changes, EPA greatly expanded the list of activities defined as "routine maintenance," which were already exempted from requiring clean-up. EPA redefined "routine maintenance" to mean any project that costs less than 20 percent of the replacement cost of the entire plant, no matter how much additional pollution it creates. So now, no matter what changes are made, they will just be "routine maintenance" even though the entire plant may cost billions of dollars to replace. By basing this definition on the cost of the plant rather than on how much pollution is created, this new definition effectively exempts plants from having to install or upgrade their emissions reduction equipment at all.
Protecting the Nation from Air Pollution continued... |
