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Clean Air Program Reports
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Executive Summary
For a quarter century, the
Clean Air Act’s “new source review” program has protected Colorado’s families
by requiring large industrial facilities to modernize their air pollution control
equipment when they expand their operations and increase air pollution levels.
The new source review program is based on the premise that industrial facilities
increasing air pollution levels in Colorado’s neighborhoods and communities
should take reasonable steps to limit that pollution. The program recognizes
that the most cost-effective time to invest in modern air pollution controls
is when older, high-polluting facilities are making major capital investments
in industrial expansion.
But in December 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) weakened
long-standing protections under the Clean Air Act’s new source review program
by adopting a suite of exemptions that allow facilities to increase pollution
levels without modernizing air pollution control measures.While numerous states
have taken legal action to stop EPA’s rollbacks, the Colorado Air Quality Control
Commission approved these revisions in April 2004 and positioned Colorado to
become one of the first states in the nation to adopt the exemptions. Although
approved by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, the revisions cannot
be submitted to EPA for final adoption into Colorado’s air quality management
plan until they are approved by the state legislature.
All Coloradoans should be proud of the progress made over the past few decades
in protecting and enhancing Colorado’s air quality. But important, pressing
air quality challenges remain. And with brisk growth projected for Colorado’s
future, this is no time to weaken clean air safeguards. Rather, older, high-polluting
existing industrial sources and power plants should be asked to do their fair
share to lower pollution. Now is the time to stop the rollbacks to protect hard-earned
clean air gains and to ensure that increases in pollution from industrial sources
do not worsen Colorado’s air quality.
Local governments opposed Colorado’s rush to adopt Clean Air Act rollbacks
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission approved clean air rollbacks without
careful consideration of the impacts on Colorado’s air quality. The Commission’s
action approving the exemptions was opposed by a coalition of local governments
including: Aspen, Boulder County, Broomfield City and County, Denver City and
County, San Juan Basin, San Miguel County and Telluride. These local governments
were concerned that the exemptions would allow pollution increases that threatened
Colorado’s public health, environment and economy, and that the state was acting
hastily to adopt these rollbacks without adequate analysis of their impacts.
The local governments repeatedly and unsuccessfully urged the state to carefully
examine the air quality impacts of these proposed policy changes before adopting
them.
Independent experts criticized the Clean Air Act rollbacks
EPA’s clean air rollbacks now pending before the Colorado legislature have been
criticized by several independent reviewers—including the United States General
Accounting Office and the National Academy of Public Administration—due to their
flawed analysis and misguided policy direction:
- The United States General Accounting Office found that EPA relied on anecdotal
information from the industries most affected by the new source review program
to support its conclusion that the program should be changed, because the agency
lacked more comprehensive data (GAO, 2003).
- The National Academy of Public Administration, an independent, nonpartisan
organization chartered by Congress to improve government, recommended that EPA
ensure that the new source review program provides enhanced protection of public
health and the environment while avoiding creating loopholes or exemptions (NAPA,
2004).
The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission did not address these core concerns
in approving EPA’s rules for Colorado.
The exemptions would allow air pollution increases at industrial facilities
across Colorado
This report examines the impact of the pending Clean Air Act rollbacks on Colorado’s
public health and environment. The report finds:
- Colorado faces important air quality challenges. EPA has declared Front Range
communities out of compliance with the federal health-based ozone (smog) standard.
Colorado’s national parks and wilderness areas, including Rocky Mountain National
Park, are experiencing significant environmental degradation due to air pollution.
- The new source review program has been a key component of the state’s air
quality strategy to keep rising air pollution levels in check.
- The exemptions to the new source review program pending before the state legislature
will allow for major increases in air pollution.
One of the most damaging changes would exempt industrial facilities from the
long-standing requirement to use the most recent two years of emissions as the
benchmark or “baseline” for past pollution levels. The new rules would allow
an industrial facility to increase air pollution to its highest levels in the
past ten years without upgrading its pollution controls or taking steps to mitigate
the pollution increases. As shown in Figure 1, significant air pollution increases
could occur under this exemption alone. And this damaging change to the rules
for determining baseline pollution levels is only one of several major programmatic
exemptions pending approval by the state legislature.
Our technical analysis of the so-called “baseline” exemption indicates that
Front Range counties could suffer significant increases in smog-forming pollutants
because of rising pollution levels at large industrial sources. In fact, ozone-forming
volatile organic compounds and oxides of nitrogen from large industrial sources
could far exceed the levels assumed in the state’s plan for restoring healthy
air and meeting the federal health-based ozone standard. Despite repeated requests,
the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission failed to conduct a similar detailed
technical analysis before rushing to approve these exemptions.
Statewide, pollutants that contribute to harmful particulate pollution, haze
and acid deposition could rise substantially under the new baseline exemption,
with potentially a 78 percent increase in allowable sulfur dioxide emissions,
a 34 percent increase in allowable particulate pollution emissions and a 22
percent increase in allowable nitrogen oxide emissions from large industrial
facilities. Appendix A describes the methodology used in this analysis and contains
maps showing potential emissions increases by pollutant for affected counties.
Colorado should be strengthening—not weakening—air quality protections. For
example, if coal-fired power plants in Colorado were required to install present
day air pollution controls, harmful sulfur dioxide emissions from these sources
could be reduced by 67 percent and oxides of nitrogen could be reduced by 78
percent (See Appendix B).
Coloradoans cherish healthy air, blue skies and inspiring mountain vistas. The
rollbacks approved by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission conflict with
these important values. The state legislature should stop these rollbacks and
require a thoughtful, credible analysis before approving action that weakens
vital clean air protections.We need to work together to lower air pollution
and secure cleaner, healthier air for all Coloradoans.
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