Buck In Brief

Air Pollution Worsens; Bush Administration Rolls Back Clean Air Act

In Brief: A vital section of the Clean Air Act known as "New Source Review" is under attack by the Bush administration.

12/15/03

It causes tens of thousands of premature deaths every year. Far larger numbers of people are hospitalized with cardiorespiratory illnesses due to its toxic effects. It kills fish, destroys forests, causes algae blooms in lakes and bays, and contaminates the food chain with mercury. "It" is air pollution. It's an insidious, deadly, and widespread public health threat, and the Bush administration is intent upon making it worse.

A Clean Air Act program known as new source review requires new industrial facilities to use state-of-the-art control technology to ensure that their emissions will not violate health-based air quality standards or exacerbate existing violations. Expecting that old plants would be retired soon, Congress exempted existing plants from the requirement to install up-to-date pollution controls. If existing plants were modified in ways that would increase pollution, however, Congress required their owners to comply with the standards for new sources.

Over the last few decades, industries -- utilities and refineries in particular -- have kept old plants running long after their expected retirement, often modifying the plants quietly to increase generating capacity. Many of those modifications also resulted in increased air pollution, which should have triggered the new source review rule requiring the installation of modern pollution control equipment. Instead, with the benign neglect or negligence of the EPA, industry ignored these provisions.

In the late years of the Clinton administration, the EPA finally began suing utilities and refineries that expanded without meeting new source review standards. In addition, states and environmental organizations began their own lawsuits and won some significant victories. Since secrecy and avoidance wasn't working anymore, the industries decided to re-write the rules. Characteristically, the Bush administration agreed.

The resulting "reform" actually creates various loopholes that allow industry to increase emissions, substantially in many cases, without meeting new source standards. These loopholes violate both the letter and intent of the Clean Air Act, which requires that new source review apply to "any physical change in, or change in the method of operation of, a stationary source which increases the amount of any air pollutant emitted by such source." Earthjustice is challenging these revisions in two lawsuits, and attorney generals from 14 states and the District of Columbia have filed similar suits.

Just as the EPA looked the other way for decades as the Clean Air Act was violated by industrial facilities, they also allowed cities and municipalities around the country to exceed federal deadlines for attaining clean air without repercussions. Earthjustice has successfully forced the EPA to implement its own rules in many cases. Our latest is in the New York City region.

The New York metropolitan area, which includes New York City and several surrounding towns and counties, has for decades violated federal air quality standards for ozone, the major component of smog. The health results -- including asthma, which has become almost an epidemic in many New York neighborhoods -- are predictable and dire.

The EPA has classified the region as a "severe" ozone non-attainment area under the Clean Air Act, with a 2007 deadline for meeting health standards. Unfortunately, computer modeling predicts that the metropolitan area will continue to violate the ozone standard by wide margins in 2007. Despite these results, EPA issued a finding that New York will meet the 2007 deadline, thereby waiving requirements for stronger pollution controls. Instead of illegally weakening the anti-smog requirements for the region, Earthjustice is contending that full pollution control measures -- including cost effective solutions such as improvements to public transportation -- should be instituted to cut smog.

Air pollution is hard to detect to the naked eye. Even where it is visible, as smog or haze, the threats can seem abstract and long-term. The terms in which it is debated -- stationary sources, attainment, ambient air quality -- can be obscure. But the threat is real, and deadly. For decades, Earthjustice has worked to protect the public health and the environment from this silent killer. Thanks to your support, we'll be able to continue the fight for as long as it takes.

Vawter "Buck" Parker, Executive Director
buckparker@earthjustice.org