| WASHINGTON
- August 26 - On the eve of key EPA and Congressional decisions on air pollution laws, new data show that 2002 was the worst smog season in recent years, according to a new Clear the Air report released today by U.S. PIRG.' Danger In The Air: Unhealthy Levels Of Smog In 2002' found that smog monitors in 41 states and the District of Columbia recorded unhealthy levels of air pollution on nearly 9,000 occasions in 2002, nearly double the number of violations of the national health standard for smog in 2001.
EPA is expected to finalize the most sweeping rollback in the 33-year history of the Clean Air Act as early as today or tomorrow. Congress will return next week to face decisions on a new EPA Administrator and the administration's plan to allow power plants to pump millions more tons of smog-forming pollutants into the air.
"Smog triggers asthma attacks, sends hundreds of thousands of Americans to emergency rooms each summer, and keeps kids from playing outdoors on hot days," said U.S. PIRG Clean Air Advocate Emily Figdor. "The Bush administration's plan to weaken the Clean Air Act is like pouring gasoline on a fire-it will make a bad situation much worse," she continued.
Ground-level ozone or "smog" is formed when pollution from power plants, cars, trucks, and other sources bakes in the heat and sun. Even relatively low levels of ozone can affect healthy people's ability to breathe, but children, senior citizens, and people with respiratory diseases are particularly vulnerable to the health effects of ozone, which include asthma attacks, hospital visits for respiratory problems, and irreversible lung damage. Recent studies link ozone to the onset of asthma as well as to mortality from strokes, a leading cause of death in the U.S.
"If confirmed, Gov. Leavitt's EPA will be making the most critical decisions in the Agency's history regarding air quality," said Clear the Air Director Angela Ledford. "Leavitt will face key deadlines in the implementation of the nation's clean air standards, including enacting the more health-protective smog standards. So far the administration is heading the wrong direction and rolling back clean air rules. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that Gov. Leavitt will be allowed to change course, setting the stage for more summers like 2002," she concluded.
'Danger In The Air: Unhealthy Levels Of Smog In 2002' is the fourth annual compilation of data from the nation's network of more than 1,000 ozone monitors. Key findings include the following:
• 2002 was the worst smog season for which we have data.
• Forty-one states and the District of Columbia exceeded the national health standard for ozone 8,818 times during the 2002 ozone season, a 90 percent increase over 2001.
• California, Texas, and Tennessee led the nation with the most "smog days"—days on which at least one ozone monitor in the state exceeds the national health standard.
• Ozone monitors in California, Texas, and along the Eastern seaboard recorded 55 exceedances falling within "very unhealthy" range in 2002.
• Every region of the country exceeded the national health standard for ozone more often in 2002 than 2001. The largest increases were in the Midwest, Southeast, and Central states, which exceeded the ozone standard 2.6, 2.8, and 5.6 times more frequently than the previous year, respectively.
The report also includes a limited amount of preliminary data for 2003, which has been a relatively mild and wet summer. Key findings for 21 states and the District of Columbia include the following:
• Twenty of these 21 states and the District of Columbia exceeded the national health standard for ozone 1,231 times through mid-August 2003 compared with a total of 3,961 times in those states during the entire 2002 ozone season, making for a less smoggy season overall.
• However, Colorado is having its worst smog season in recent years, and Florida and Louisiana already have exceeded the national health standard for ozone on more occasions than in all of 2002.
"We can't depend on the weather to protect Americans from diseases caused by breathing polluted air," said Ledford. "We may have gotten lucky this summer because of the break from the summer heat, but smog levels are still unacceptably high and will rise again unless we clean up old, dirty power plants and other pollution sources," she continued.
This week EPA plans to finalize a rule that would essentially repeal the "New Source Review" provision of the Clean Air Act, which requires more than 17,000 of the nation's largest industrial pollution sources, including electric utilities, oil refineries, and chemical plants, to install modern pollution controls when they make upgrades that increase air pollution. The new rule would allow facilities to avoid installing pollution controls when they replace equipment—even if the upgrade increases pollution—as long as the cost of the replacement did not exceed 20 percent of the cost of what EPA broadly defines as a "process unit." For example, if a coal-fired power plant replaced a boiler whose cost was less than 20 percent of the replacement cost of the entire process unit-the boiler, turbine, generator, and other equipment that turns coal into electricity-the company would not have to control the resulting pollution increases.
In the 11 states with the highest number of smog days in 2002, there are 143 "grandfathered" coal-fired power plants, or 35 percent of all grandfathered facilities nationwide. In addition, these 11 states are home to 24 of the 51 power plants that have been sued by the EPA for violating the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program.
The White House also is pushing for a vote in September on its so-called "Clear Skies" bill, which would allow power plants to release more than one and a half times more smog-forming nitrogen oxides into the air from 2010 to 2018 compared to the timely enforcement of current law.
"We can't change weather or geography, but we can control the amount of pollution in the air," said Figdor. "Pollution control technologies could cut emissions to a tiny fraction of current levels, but instead the Bush administration is allowing polluters to make the problem even worse," she continued.
The report recommends that policymakers:
• Abandon regulatory efforts designed to weaken the application of the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program.
• Reject the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" plan, which would allow power plants to emit more pollution over a longer period than simply enforcing current law.
• Adopt a comprehensive new program to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, and mercury from power plants.
• Ensure timely designation of 8-hour ozone nonattainment areas.
• Oppose efforts to delay or weaken Clean Air Act requirements that apply to ozone nonattainment areas.
• Adopt fuel and emission standards for "non-road" diesel construction, farming, and industrial equipment, as well as trains and ships, to reduce emissions from these vehicles and engines by at least 90 percent.
###
|
