Government
President's clean air bill gets mixed reviews Lois R. Ember, C&EN Washington
President Bush's recently submitted clean air bill, the first comprehensive air legislation sent to Congress in 12 years, has been heartily praised by some members of Congress and environmentalists for breaking legislative deadlock but just as heartily damned for weakening the current law and for falling short of his earlier promises. Industry, for the most part, finds it a good starting point for rewriting the 1977 law. "The bill is not perfect but it contains enough substance that it could be the vehicle Congress uses to amend the Clean Air Act/' says Chemical Manufacturers Association's spokesman Jeffrey C. Van. The bill addresses three major issues: air toxics, acid rain, and urban smog. Only the acid rain provisions were lauded by Congress as being close to effective. Harsh criticism swirled around provisions for controlling hazardous air pollutants, including those from mobile sources contributing to the urban smog problem. Rep. Mickey Leland (D.-Tex.) and Rep. Gerry Sikorski (Democratic Farm Labor-Minn.) offer fairly typical Congressional reaction to the air toxics provisions of the bill. Leland finds that the proposal "reg-
ulates only a fraction of the sources." Sikorski says Bush's bill "eliminates existing health protection standards for air toxics [and] fails to require the best control technology." Leland's reading of the President's bill is that mobile sources, which account for 50% of toxic air emissions, and area sources such as dry cleaners, which account for 25% of such emissions, would not be regulated. "The remaining 25% of toxic air emissions are released by major industrial sources, and the President's proposal requires regulation of only half of those sources," he adds. Leland also believes that the bill fails "to address accidental releases" of toxic air emissions. Leland and Sikorski are only partially correct in their assessments. Part of the error can be laid to the Congressmen relying on an earlier draft of the bill for their information. For instance, "The level of control on existing and new sources was made more stringent in the final bill," says Ann M. Mason, associate director of CMA's environmental division. But the language is rather vague and leaves a lot of room for flexibility, she adds. "At this point we don't know precisely the level of control [the Administration] has in mind, but we anticipate that stringent controls will be required." As for half of the sources not
being regulated, "that's potentially true but not likely," says James E. McCarthy, a Congressional Research Service environmental policy specialist. And as Mason reminds, "The states may be able to set control requirements on sources that the Environmental Protection Agency doesn't regulate." The Administration's bill sets out a schedule that would regulate the first half of initially listed sources within seven years. Those sources in the second half—presumably smaller, less dangerous sources— would be regulated at the discretion of the EPA Administrator. "To some extent, the number being regulated then depends on who's President, who's the Administrator, and the U.S. policy on the environment," McCarthy explains. Area sources are to be regulated under the President's bill, but here, again, the bill's language is vague. It does say that technology-based standards will be applied to "designated area sources," but it does not list these sources. Small, but numerous "area sources may be in that 50% over which the EPA Administrator has discretion," says McCarthy. Such regulation is "potentially very important in terms of providing protection to the population," he adds. The President's bill sets u p a
A snapshot of Bush's proposal for controlling hazardous air pollutants • Some 191 chemicals or classes of hazardous air pollutants would be controlled by technology-based standards. • Maximum achievable control technology, or MACT, standards are to be based on cost and feasibility and are to be promulgated for an unspecified number of source categories. A category consists of sources having common products, operational processes, or services. Area sources, small point sources such as dry cleaners, are among the categories. • A major source is defined as one emitting more than 10 tons per year of a listed pollutant or 25 tons per year 26
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of a combination of listed pollutants. Electric utilities are not to be regulated until a study and report on the need to regulate is submitted to Congress. • MACT for a new source will be technology "at least as stringent as the best emissions control achieved in practice by a similar source." New sources will have to comply with the standard beginning the day the standard becomes effective. • MACT for existing sources will be "at least as stringent as emissions control typical of the best performing similar sources." Existing sources will have to comply with the standard three years after its effective date.
• The maximum achievable degree of reduction will take cost and control feasibility into consideration. • One half of an unspecified number of initially listed source categories will be regulated within seven years. The 10 worst source categories will be regulated within two years. • Those categories in the remaining half for which it is determined regulations are necessary will be regulated within 10 years of the bill's enactment. • Seven years after a MACT standard is issued, the EPA Administrator will evaluate remaining health risks. If emissions from a source category
I t :z S
Bush bill seen weak on air toxics issue chemical safety board to deal with toxic air releases. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D.-Conn.) is correct in saying that the bill does not require that industry undertake certain measures to reduce the chances of a major accident. It does not "require industries handling dangerous chemicals to prepare worst-case scenarios for their communities and to take steps to deal with such disasters," Lieberman explains. The two competing air toxics bills in Congress—the Leland bill in the House and Dave Durenberger's (RMinn.) bill in the Senate—have provisions requiring companies to do present "an unreasonable risk" to public health, the Administrator is to promulgate an additional standard within two years. Unreasonable risk is not defined in the bill. • States may seek approval for programs that allow them to issue emissions limitations permits to sources, allowing the sources to meet the limitations instead of the MACT standard. • The President may exempt any source from hazardous air pollutant requirements for renewable, two-year periods for national security reasons. • An Air Pollutant Release Investigation Board is to be set up within EPA. • The Administration estimates the cost of a fully implemented program at $2 billion per year.
hazard assessments and to develop measures to minimize accidents. These bills, unlike the Bush bill, give EPA more authority to require release prevention measures. "How to deal with sudden or accidental releases, w h e t h e r to go beyond a chemical safety board, will be one of the big issues in the air toxics debates," says CRS's McCarthy. The third controversial issue, along with the discretion allowed the EPA Administrator over regulating 50% of the sources, is the concept of unreasonable risk. In Bush's bill, the EPA Administrator would revisit the issue seven years after imposing technologybased controls on sources. He could apply more stringent standards if he finds that emissions still "present an unreasonable risk to public health taking into account the cost and technical feasibility as well as the health risks of such standards." Senate majority leader George J. Mitchell (D.-Me.) finds this costbenefit analysis particularly onerous. He agrees with Bush that "there should be a technology standard for air toxics with a health-based backup." He finds the Bush technology standard weaker than he would have liked, "but most disturbing is that the health standard is now 'unreasonable risk'—a standard so loose it is found only in federal laws that are notoriously flawed." Bush's bill again is competing with the Leland and Durenberger bills on this point. Both the Congressional bills would set specific risk levels. Leland's would allow one cancer in 1 million population, Durenberger's would permit one in 10,000. David J. Shaw, who heads an air resources bureau in New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, says Bush's two-step approach to regulating air toxics "is sound. But a standard to prevent health risks should not be based on cost considerations." Policy analyst Kent Jeffreys of the Heritage Foundation also has a problem with the so-called health-based standard. "EPA hasn't demonstrated a public-health threat anywhere [from air toxics]. Do we need to spend a lot of money to correct a nonexistent problem?" he asks. His
concern is that the air toxics provisions "apply a nationwide cost to very unique and localized problems, and such wide application could have extremely profound impacts on local economies." Just slightly tongue-in-cheek, Jeffreys says, "I'm afraid the air toxics program will become a publicnobody-gets-to-work project." University of Denver atmospheric chemist Donald H. Stedman sees it a bit differently. The air toxics provisions "are politically marvelous—for Congressmen not the environment. They will give lots of money to state and local agencies," which unfortunately don't have the needed technical expertise to regulate them. Both Jeffreys and Stedman fault the Administration for not thinking through the details and implications of its proposals. Jeffreys points out that formaldehyde is listed and is to be controlled as an air toxic. Yet burning methanol produces formaldehyde and the Administration is promoting methanolfueled vehicles as a means of controlling urban smog. According to Stedman, "The mobile sources for certain of the listed chemicals are so large and so badly underestimated—by a factor of four—that fiddling around trying to find stationary sources to control is not going to do much" for what it will cost. The amount of discretion and flexibility given the EPA Administrator is disconcerting to some members of Congress. "The agency hasn't had a track record to inspire a lot of trust in Congress, particularly with regard to discretionary provisions," explains one knowledgeable Congress watcher. Says Sen. Mitchell, "Page after page of discretionary deadlines, provisions promising future decisions, and outright delay, speak of an Administration divided in intent and torn in purpose." Yet CMA's Mason points out that such discretion and "flexibility allow EPA to set priorities for the national improvement of air quality." Not so, says Stedman. "You can be sure things won't happen, not because the EPA Administrator is given too much discretion, but because he is being given yet another job that's impossible to do." G August 7, 1989 C&EN
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