Comments and Testimonies

Comments on Proposed Rule to Implement
the 8-Hour Ozone Standard, 68 FR 32802, (June 2, 2003)

June 27, 2003

I am Arthur Stamoulis, and my comments on implementation of the 8-hour ozone standard are made on behalf of Clean Air Council, a 501(c)(3) environmental organization representing over 7,000 residents of Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Council operates out of offices in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware. Established in 1967, Clean Air Council is dedicated to protecting the right of everyone to breathe clean air.

For the over one million Pennsylvanians suffering from some type of chronic breathing disorder, including over 130,000 children with asthma, breathing can be difficult even in the absence of air pollution. And yet, a number of counties in Pennsylvania do not meet the 1-hour health standards for ozone smog pollution and more than 30 are expected to fail to meet the more stringent 8-hour standard.

Ozone pollution in Pennsylvania is causing asthma attacks in young children, it is leading to premature deaths among the elderly, and it is even damaging the lungs of perfectly healthy adults. Pennsylvanians need clean air now. The new, 8-hour ozone standards should be implemented in such a way as to make sure all Americans can breathe clean, healthful air as soon as possible.

For regions of the country that do not meet basic ozone health standards, we need to maintain strong tools to improve air quality. When it comes to classifying nonattainment areas under the 8-hour standard, Subpart 2 of the Clean Air Act's Title 1, Part D, offers much stronger tools that Subpart 1. For example, Subpart 2-based programs that deliver critical emissions reductions in non-attainment areas in Pennsylvania include: enhanced emissions inspection and maintenance programs; Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT); Reasonable Further Progress (RFP) demonstrations; emissions offsets at higher than one-to-one ratios; and lower emissions thresholds for triggering major source new source review. As Pennsylvania has come to rely on reductions from these and other Subpart 2 programs to demonstrate progress toward attainment, it is therefore necessary to continue to utilize the Subpart 2 framework. Furthermore, proceeding to implementation under Subpart 2 is more consistent with the Court's remand.

Based on Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) extrapolation of Table 1 from Section 181(a) of the Act, Subpart 2 also contains more stringent attainment dates for cleaning up air quality under the new, 8-hour standard than does Subpart 1. When it comes to nonattainment area classifications for the 8-hour standard, EPA's proposed "Option 1" would require dirty areas to come into attainment two to five years earlier than those classified under "Option 2." Reaching attainment even two years sooner is well-justified by the resulting prevention of a large number of asthma attacks and premature deaths as well as the prevention of countless missed school and work days in Pennsylvania.

Regions that are not meeting human health standards need all they help they can get reducing pollution. For this reason, the Council opposes EPA's proposed classification "incentive" feature, which would allow regions to be classified at lower classification levels than their current air quality justify based on modeling projections of cleaner air in the future. The Act's mechanism for determining the classification of an area has always been based on the best, most recent actual data available. Clean Air Council views as inappropriate and reckless the attempt to replace this process with a reliance on predictions and projections. Modeling may be suitable for other purposes in the Clean Air Act, but this is not one of them.

The Council also opposes the "Early Action Compact" concept for similar reasons. Any tools that can help a dirty region reach basic health standards more quickly should be applied-not because non-attainment designation would be avoided, but because attainment by the deadline would be achieved without need for extensions from EPA. If an area comes into attainment earlier than required with the aid of these tools, so much the better.

Clean Air Council also believes that new requirements for regions out of attainment of the 8-hour standard should be used in addition to, not in place of, existing requirements for meeting the 1-hour standard. Areas that do not meet the 1-hour standard based on the latest quality-assured data must not have requirements for air quality improvements revoked. It would be contrary to statutory intent if revocation were to allow the 8-hour standard to provide an opportunity for an area to delay its attainment of health standards. For example, under the 1-hour standard, the Philadelphia area must reach attainment by 2005. Under the expected 8-hour classification for the area, Philadelphia will not have to attain until 2010. This is an absurd result that EPA can avoid by withdrawing its first option for revocation. The second revocation option preserves some of the requirements for 1-hour non-attainment areas and is the lesser of two evils, although it remains flawed. There cannot be a window during which new sources of pollution can be installed without meeting standards that were previously in place under the 1-hour rule. Again, the goal of these rules should be to enable people to breathe clean, healthful air as soon as possible. If a region faced more stringent requirements under the 1-hour standard than they initially would under the new standard, those more stringent requirements should remain in place until attainment for both the 1-hour and the 8-hour health standards are met. Likewise, the new 8-hour standard should not serve as a pass granting extensions to air quality improvement measures that should have been implemented under the 1-hour standard.

Finally, Clean Air Council opposes attempts to weaken New Source Review (NSR) requirements in any region. NSR is a critical Clean Air Act tool that serves as a necessary complement to National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). Air quality cannot improve if new sources of pollution can be created without careful planning to limit their unhealthful impacts. EPA's proposal to revise NSR under a "transitional program" for areas that demonstrate they will meet the basic 8-hour health standard in three years or less does nothing but prolong the time before residents of dirty areas can breathe healthy air. Likewise, proposed reductions of NSR requirements and other Clean Air Act protections under so-called "Clean Air Development Communities" should be resisted as an impediment to obtaining basic air health standards as quickly as possible.

EPA's proposal appears to approach the implementation of the 8-hour ozone standard from the vantage point of allowing regions as much time as possible in meeting the new standard, in contravention of the language and purpose of the Act. The result of such a misguided approach will be more asthma attacks, more emergency room visits, more missed days of school and work, and more days when even the fittest of the fit should not exert energy outdoors.

Everyone deserves the right to breathe clean, healthy air. The 8-hour ozone standard must not be implemented so as to pose impediments to timely air quality improvements under the existing framework nor to prevent rapid progress toward attaining the 8-hour standard itself.

Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony. Clean Air Council reserves the right to submit additional comments in writing by the deadline.