June 16, 2005

Contact: Arthur Stamoulis
(215) 567-4004 x107

NEW BUSH "HAZE" RULE WON'T END
SMOGGY DAYS AT NATIONAL PARKS
New Rule Weaker Than Clean Air Act Requires

Philadelphia, PA - With the summer tourism season ratcheting up, clean air and national park advocates today criticized a new "haze" rule released by the White House. The advocates charge that the rule does not fulfill the Clean Air Act's promise to do everything possible to clear the air and improve visibility in national parks and wilderness areas. Nearly 300 million visitors trek to America's national parks every year, often to find poor air quality that rivals the unhealthy, dirty air shrouding major U.S. cities. To see examples of national parks shrouded in regional haze, see www.cleartheair.org/parks.

"Nobody wants their visit to a national park ruined by haze-obstructed views and dirty air," said Arthur Stamoulis, Director of Government Affairs for Clean Air Council, a statewide environmental group. "Unfortunately, many of the country's most popular national parks are often saddled with pollution that limits visibility and harms people's health. Haze can and should be entirely eliminated from national parks, but the Bush administration has issued a rule that allows considerable amounts of haze to remain."

The Clean Air Act contains a "regional haze" provision to restore the natural level of visibility to national parks and wilderness areas. However, the rule put forward by the Bush administration abandons park-specific cleanup measures and instead relies on a separate rulemaking - intended to deal with air pollution that crosses state lines - to improve air in the parks. Clean air advocates contend that reducing emissions only by the amounts required in this unrelated rulemaking will leave many of the country's leading national parks hazy far into future, contrary to the Clean Air Act's requirement that regional haze be immediately remedied. Without a strong regional haze rule:

• Shenadoah National Park in Virginia will be only 62% cleaned up.
  
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina will be only 55% cleaned up.
  
• Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky will be only 54% cleaned up.
  
• Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia will be only 43% cleaned up.
  
• Acadia National Park in Texas will be only 41% cleaned up.
  
• Big Bend National Park in Texas will be only 2% cleaned up.

For a more extensive list, see www.net.org/documents/bart_shortfall.pdf.

"All Americans have the right to breathe clean air when they visit national parks," said Stamoulis. "The Clean Air Act requires that we clean up the air in our parks, separate from any efforts to reduce interstate air pollution. The Bush administration can't take this right away."

In addition to reducing visibility and detracting from the park experience, regional haze poses significant public health threats, including respiratory ailments, heart disease, cancer and premature death.

"Just in time for summer, when haze is at its worst and visits to national parks highest, the EPA is shirking its responsibility to clean up the air in favor of giving polluters a break," said Nathan Willcox, energy and clean air advocate with PennEnvironment. "For the price of admission, Pennsylvanian families arriving at parks across the country will get to see a lot of smoggy haze."

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