The Clean Air Act r
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The recently enacted Clean Air Act is not the average environmental law. Unlike other environmental laws that rely almost exclusively on end-of-pipe treatment, the Clean Air Act could shape the fuels we use for transportation and utilities, the types of economic activities allowed in certain areas, and even personal mobility in the most severely impacted areas. Because the Clean Air Act more directly affects major segments of the economy and personal behavior. it will test the United States’ commitment to environmental improvement in a fundamentally different way. The 1990 Clean Air Act is to environmental legislation what War and Peace is to the novel. Hence, summarizing the Act in a few paragraphs, as I have done below, is not without hazards. First and foremost, the Act establishes stronger medicine and tailored timetables to control conventional air pollutants. The stronger medicine includes tighter technology controls and mandatory requirements for reductions from a base inventory (15% over the first six years and 3% for each year thereafter). The timetables for compliance extend to 20 years for the Los Angeles area to only three years for areas marginally in compliance. Areas in between have six to 17 years to come into compliance. Second, to achieve compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, the 1990 Act tightens emission standards for cars and trucks. requires reformulated gasoline in certain impacted areas. and requires use of unconventional fuels by fleet operations in designated areas. Third, the Act creates a new air toxics
control program. Jettisoning the current risk-based program. the 1990 amendments rely on technology standards to control emissions of I89 hazardous air pollutants. Fourth, to control acid rain, the Act mandates a IO-million-ton reduction of sulfur oxides and a two-million-ton reduction of nitrogen oxides. This section of the Act allows utilities to buy and sell “pollution rights“ to reduce the total cost of compliance. Finally. the 1990 Act creates a new permit program. similar to the Clean Water Act. and adds stiff civil and criminal penalties. The failure to achieve ambient standards for ozone and carbon monoxide represents the greatest challenge. These standards were not achieved in large measure because steps to reduce auto and indushial emissions were counterbalanced by population and economic growth over the past 20 years. Currently, most of the large cities of the Nonheast, Southwest. and Southern California are in substantial noncompliance. Recognizing the inherent impossibility of achieving the ambient standards. states submitted implementation plans that bore no relationship to reality. Deadlines came and went; they lost all credibility and meaning. Air quality did improve in many areas of the country, but overall, the goals of the Clean Air Act were far from achieved. Can the 1990 amendments be more successful? The answer is “yes” in many areas and “perhaps” in others. Controlling toxic air pollutants through technology standards is a sensible step conceptually. It is far from clear, however. whether it makes sense to control all 189 contaminants. EPA needs to apply some common sense or these new provisions can result in a large commitment of resources for only marginal improvements in air quality. The acid rain provisions are generally well crafted and should work. Some observers are concerned. however, that either utilities will hoard excess allowances rather than sell them or states will prevent sales across their boundaries. If excess allowances are not sold. the cost savings promised will not materialize
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and siting new facilities will be a problem. The viability of the market will certainly affect coal use. If allowances are reasonable, it may be possible to conS ~ N Cnew ~ coal-fired facilities. If allowances are hard to find, utilities will need to pursue other alternatives, such as natural gas-fired boilers, electricity impons, and purchases from independent power producers. The 1990s amendments create no reasonable assurance that ambient standards for ozone will k met by the new timetables. The tighter emission limits and use of unconventional fuels will help. but too much reliance is placed on unspecified emission reductions. The political responsibility is being thrown to the states to identify control programs to achieve these reductions. In the past. the states have not been willing to grab that responsibility. In essence, the nation‘s clean air blueprint is still incomplete. EPA and the states can proceed in a fashion similar to the Russian laborer who remarked that the Soviet government pretended to pay wages and the laborers pretended to work. Or EPA and the states can work together on mechanisms to bring the Clean Air Act closer to reality and can create an open dialogue on real, rather than paper, prospects. In my opinion. a viable air pollution control strategy must place attainment of ambient standards at the top of the list of issues to be addressed. EPA and the states must be creative and consider a wide range of market incentives, information, technological substitution. and institutional options to bring areas into compliance. Such a strategy review would be aimed at achieving a real set of objectives that EPA and the states could be measured against-not another set of illusory paper goals.
Ahsin L. Alm is direrrnr and senior vicepresidenr for energy and rhe environmeirt for Science Applicarians I~rvrnational C o p , a supplier uf hi,qh-rechnnlogyproducts and seii,ire.s related IO rhe ernirnirmen[. enerxy, Irealrh. and narional secririw. Environ. Sci. Technol.. VoI. 25,No. 3. 1991 383
