[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 125 (Thursday, September 12, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1607-E1608]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FINDINGS CLOUD POLLUTION THEORIES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL G. OXLEY

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 12, 1996

  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I would commend to my colleagues the 
following article of September 2, 1996, authored by Mr. Jim Nichols of 
the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The article summarizes new scientific 
findings that discredit the theory that the Midwest is responsible for 
the air pollution findings of the Northeast. This further confirms the 
findings of the Government-funded NAPA report, which was completed a 
number of years ago. This research should be considered in setting 
Federal policies in a number of areas.

                 [From the Plain Dealer, Sept. 2, 1996]

 Findings Cloud Pollution Theories--Midwest Smog May Not Drift to the 
                               Northeast

                            (By Jim Nichols)

       As the summer cools down, the politics and economics of air 
     pollution are heating up.
       The early results from highly advanced computer modeling 
     are casting a haze of doubt over a persistent claim from 
     Atlantic Seaboard states that Ohio and the Midwest are the 
     culprits in the Northeast's smog problems.
       The modeling results, released at a multistate air-quality 
     planning meeting in July, show that certain key air 
     pollutants don't drift as far across state borders as 
     previously believed, experts familiar with the models say.
       The computer simulations, though incomplete, indicate key 
     windborne pollutants that are components of smog are likely 
     to blow no more than 200 miles, not many hundreds or even 
     thousands of miles, as researchers previously believed.
       The results weaken theories that are especially popular 
     among Northeastern states--that coal- and oil-fired power 
     plants in the Midwest and Southeast are to blame for smog in 
     Boston, New York and Maine.
       Though much more modeling remains to be done, many air-
     quality experts say the early implications are huge.
       The results, some believe, could weaken the Atlantic 
     Seaboard region's argument that Ohio and other upwind states 
     should spend billions of dollars on new smog controls to help 
     clean the Northeast's air. Regulators and scientists studying 
     seaboard-state smog, for instance, are contemplating advanced 
     pollution controls on Midwestern and Southern power plants 
     that are as strict as those in place in the high-smog region.
       Utility and coal interests have estimated the cost of such 
     controls to Midwestern and Southeastern electrical customers 
     at $18 billion to $27 billion annually. Centerior Energy 
     Corp. pegs the cost between $200 million and $500 million 
     annually here.


                            fearful of costs

       The findings seem to reinforce the theory that local and 
     regional air pollution programs in the Northeast are the only 
     significant way to solve the region's perennial failure to 
     meet federal clean-air standards.
       Officials in the problem states have long feared that the 
     higher cost of living and doing business resulting from 
     stricter emission controls on power plants and factories has 
     put the region at a competitive disadvantage.
       Some Northeastern states have scrapped their versions of E-
     check auto-emissions testing amid public outcry, saying such 
     political hot potatoes are meaningless if the air drifting in 
     from afar is so foul.
       ``Clearly, this is not what the 13 states in the 
     [Northeast] want to hear,'' said Ray Evans, environmental-
     affairs manager for Centerior Energy Corp. ``The East Coast 
     utilities have flat out said that we in the Midwest are the 
     problem and our ratepayers are going to have to pay.''
       Ohio Environmental Protection Agency Director Donald 
     Schregardus said, ``It's kind of what we thought. * * * It 
     says to those states, `You fix your cars, and then we [in the 
     Midwest] will talk about spending $5 billion to fix our power 
     plants.''
       Schregardus and his air-quality division chief, Robert 
     Hodanbosi, said the computer simulations show that even on 
     days when Northeastern smog was at its worst, the drift from 
     faraway states downwind made no more than a few percentage 
     points' difference. Evans and other officials familiar with 
     the modeling results confirmed that.
       ``I was surprised at the limited impacts,'' Hodanbosi said.
       The early findings do not necessarily mean Ohioans and 
     other Midwesterners will forever and completely avoid the 
     costly new smog controls, said Schregardus and experts 
     conducting the modeling.
       The results, after all, show those proposed reduction 
     strategies will help achieve cleaner air in the Midwest. If 
     models show that the advanced pollution controls would be 
     needed for certain Midwestern areas to meet federal clean-air 
     targets, certain parts of the Midwest could still implement 
     controls as stringent as those already imposed on power 
     plants and factories in the Northeast.
       Further, the federal EPA is expected to tighten air-
     pollution limits nationwide significantly later this year. 
     The limits have not been determined yet, but Ohio EPA 
     officials predict that no major metro area in the state--and 
     few in the nation--will comply without significant emission 
     reductions from cars and smokestacks.
       But for now, at least, ``It's conceivable that with the 
     information on the table, the Midwest could make an argument 
     that they don't have that much impact on the Northeast,'' 
     said Danny Herrin, an executive with the Atlanta-based 
     Southern Corp, an electric utility following the modeling 
     closely.


                             the ozone mix

       The subject of the computer modeling is ozone, a gas that 
     occurs both naturally and as a result of man-made pollution.
       Where it forms by natural processes in the upper 
     atmosphere, ozone reflects harmful ultraviolet radiation away 
     from Earth. But when it builds up near the ground, it is a 
     powerful respiratory irritant that apparently can trigger 
     asthma attacks and debilitating breathing problems, 
     especially among people with lung disease, the elderly, 
     children and people who work outdoors. In high 
     concentrations, ozone also has been linked to permanent lung 
     damage and can harm trees and crops.
       Ozone forms when fumes called hydrocarbons react in hot 
     summer sunlight with other airborne pollutants called 
     nitrogen oxides. Hydrocarbons come from auto emissions and 
     other combustion processes, and from evaporating gasoline, 
     solvents and paints. The principal source of nitrogen oxides 
     are fossil-fuel power plants.
       Atmospheric and environmental scientists began concluding 
     in the late 1980s that nitrous oxides and hydrocarbons are 
     capable of drifting on air currents until they encounter the 
     right conditions to interreact and form ozone.
       When Congress revised the Clean Air Act's ozone limits in 
     1990, it identified dozens of metropolitan areas in states 
     from Maine to Virginia as chronic violators of the act's 
     ozone limit of 125 parts of ozone per billion parts of air. 
     The law recognized that the states' balance levels of ozone 
     were so high that only a regional approach to cuts would 
     allow individual cities to comply with the law.
       States in the Atlantic Seaboard region agreed in writing 
     three years ago to adopt their own strict new limits on 
     nitrous oxide output from power plants, in addition to 
     measures ordered by Congress and the federal EPA.
       But they also enlisted the EPA to run computer simulations 
     to determine whether the so-called ozone-transport phenomenon 
     would rule out regional controls.
       The early EPA modeling in 1993 proved controversial, 
     showing the Northwest's baseline levels were high not just 
     because of the heavily populated region's contributions but 
     because of dirty air blowing in from the Midwest and South.
       While critics in downwind states--especially utilities and 
     coal interests--attacked the model as inaccurate, the 
     Northeastern states began pressuring the EPA for a ``super-
     regional'' approach that would require similar control 
     measures for upwind states. States in the South and Midwest 
     resisted initially but agreed to study the issue.
       A national organization of state environmental officials 
     formed the Ozone Transport Assessment Group, comprising 37 
     states--all those east of the Mississippi and those along its 
     western banks. The group now includes

[[Page E1608]]

     more than 500 environmental regulators, technical experts and 
     representatives of environmental groups, industry and 
     utilities--all studying ozone transport and its effects.
       The assessment group was formed for two reasons. One was to 
     develop a far more sophisticated computer simulation of ozone 
     transport. The other was to develop pollution-control 
     policies for all 37 states to impose, voluntarily, to reduce 
     ozone in the Northeast.
       As a first step, states conducted far-reaching 
     ``inventories'' of all major and minor sources of ozone-
     forming pollutants, including estimates of emissions from 
     cars, factories, evaporating paint, gasoline stations and 
     other sources. An assessment group committee of atmospheric 
     and environmental scientists and computer experts developed a 
     computer program that applies that emissions data to know 
     wind and weather patterns. It simulates drift and compares 
     predicted ozone levels at hundreds of locations to those 
     actually measured. Another committee compared particularly 
     bad spells in the summers of 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1994.
       When the assessment group began running the computer 
     program this spring, results from the simulations proved 
     remarkably similar to the real conditions, said Michael 
     Koerber, who chairs the group's modeling committee.
       ``We're convinced that the model works and is giving us the 
     right results for the right reasons,'' said Koerber, director 
     of a consortium of air-quality officials from states around 
     Lake Michigan.
       Then the modeling experts began running what Koerber calls 
     `'what-ifs.'' They asked the computer what changes would 
     result if lower emissions from certain control measures were 
     applied across the 37-state ``super-region''--if power plants 
     were forced to change their operations, for instance, or 
     cleaner-burning cars were mandated.
       Many more simulations remain to be run--at a cost of more 
     than $1 million each--to measure the effects of changing 
     emissions variables in smaller and smaller parts of the 
     super-region. However, the theory of long-range ozone drift 
     has already begun to break down.
       The simulations showed that drift existed. But while 
     Chicago may suffer from St. Louis' emissions, or Cleveland 
     from Columbus', there was little evidence that those cities 
     were having major impacts on the Northeast.
       ``It's really something we're just starting to get some 
     information on, and we really need to investigate further,'' 
     Koerber said. But, he added: ``The 1,000-mile distance seems 
     to be a bit of a stretch from a transport standpoint.''


                        competitiveness is issue

       Some participants in the assessment group are worried that 
     the new data may strain the group's cooperative spirit and 
     lead to a return of finger-pointing. If utilities in the 
     Northeast face higher costs than those in the Midwest, for 
     instance, they would be at a competitive, disadvantage in the 
     coming environment of deregulation. The federal government is 
     moving toward a system in which industrial customers will be 
     able to choose their power company without regard to its 
     geographic location.
       ``Clearly, this is a competitive issue between East Coast 
     utilities and Midwest utilities,'' said Centerior's Evans.
       Hodanbosi and other participants said pressure is mounting 
     from some Northeastern participants not to run more detailed 
     models that could further solidify the case that the 
     Midwest's effects there are minimal.
       ``Anytime you have those kinds of conflicts, you can expect 
     it to be contentious,'' said Illinois EPA Director Mary Gade, 
     who chairs the committee that will ultimately recommend 
     pollution-control policies that will apply across the 
     membership of the assessment group. ``I think we're going to 
     be in for some heated policy decisions in the next several 
     months.
       ``The nice thing is that the process to this point has been 
     a very open and collaborative process. We'll see if we can 
     hold onto that.''

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