Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you on an issue of intense concern to hundreds of environmental organizations and the public throughout the nation: power plant air pollution.
Electric power plants are by most measures the nation's largest industrial air polluter. Power plant air emissions cut a broad swath of damage across human health, and the local, regional and global environment. Unhealthy levels of ozone smog; premature death and respiratory distress from fine particles; damage to forests, lakes, bays and crops; mercury contamination of fish and wildlife; dark curtains of haze in our national parks; and contributions to greenhouse gasses -- these are some of the major problems associated with the nation's electric generating fleet.
Nor are these impacts confined to the Northeastern U.S., as is sometimes thought. Power plant emissions dramatically affect health and environmental conditions throughout the West, South, and Midwest as well. Indeed, the damages are often larger in regions such as the Tennessee and Ohio River Valleys where power plants are most densely concentrated. Power plant air pollution is at the same time intensely local, regional and inter-regional. Significant power plant emissions reductions across the nation will be necessary to curtail the damage.
The time has come for significant changes in federal policy to address these emissions problems. The current Clean Air Act, while well intended, has in practice unreasonably delayed environmental improvements in the power-generating sector. The Act's pollutant-by-pollutant, state-by-state structure has also resulted in uncertainty and fragmented decision-making by generation operators that has in turn prevented them from making rational long-term choices with regard to pollution control options. The problem is further exacerbated by the Act's exemption of generating plants older than roughly 30 years from meeting emissions standards applicable to newer plants an exemption that artificially perpetuates this sector's pollution legacy.
We urge you to consider federal policy changes with the following elements:
-- Reductions in power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides on the order of 75% below levels set under current law.
-- Mercury emission reductions of 90% from current levels.
-- Power plant carbon dioxide caps set at 1990 levels.
-- Meeting each of the above pollution reduction targets in an expeditious manner -- within five years, or 2005.
-- Trading of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide where it will not harm local and regional health and the environment, but no trading of toxic pollutants such as mercury.
-- Provisions to spur ongoing environmental performance improvements.
Today I am also testifying on behalf of Clear the Air: The National Campaign Against Dirty Power, a joint effort of the Task Force, the National Environmental Trust, and the United States Public Interest Research Group Education Fund; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Izaak Walton League of America; and nine state and regional environmental organizations. Together, these organizations represent hundreds of thousands of Americans. As this grouping indicates, environmental organizations in every part of the nation are intensely focussed on the need to clean up power sector air pollution.
I am also heartened to see recent indications from many companies in the electric power industry that they may be open to comprehensive solutions that address the problem, and hope that today you will see many more areas of agreement than disagreement among the panelists on the general direction to take.
Power Sector Air Pollution and the Need for Clean-Up
The reason for this broad public concern is plain. Electric power plants are by most measures the nation's largest industrial air polluter. Power plant air emissions cut a broad swath of damage across human health, and the local, regional and global environment. Unhealthy levels of ozone smog; premature death and respiratory distress from fine particles; damage to forests, lakes, bays and crops; mercury contamination of fish and wildlife; dark curtains of haze in our national parks; and contributions to greenhouse gasses these are just some of the major problems associated with the nation's electric generating fleet.
Nor are these impacts confined to the Northeastern U.S., as is sometimes thought. Power plant emissions dramatically affect health and environmental conditions throughout the West, South, and Midwest as well. Indeed, the damages are often larger in regions such as the Tennessee and Ohio River Valleys where the plants are more densely concentrated. Power plant air pollution is at the same time intensely local, regional and inter-regional. Significant power plant emissions reductions across the nation will be necessary to curtail the damage.
Some highlights of these damages are briefly reviewed below:
Ozone Smog
Ground level ozone is a colorless, odorless pollutant that causes respiratory damage ranging from temporary discomfort to long-term lung damage. According to a recent study, in the Eastern half of the United states, ground level ozone sends an estimated 159,000 people to emergency rooms each summer; triggers 6.2 million asthma attacks, and results in 69,000 hospital admissions. Many more millions of Americans experience other respiratory discomfort. 1999 was one of the worst ozone summers in recent history, with more than 7,500 violations of the federal ozone health standard.
Although much of the controversy around ground level ozone in recent years has centered on ozone levels in the Northeast, and the impact of Midwest and Southern emissions on the Northeast, this misses an important part of the story. In fact, many Midwestern and Southeastern states suffer greater volumes of ozone exposure and health impacts than many Northeast states. According to a recent study by the Ohio Environmental Council, in collaboration with the University of Michigan and Harvard University, people in Ohio River Valley communities such as Cincinnati and Marietta, Ohio are often exposed to dangerous levels of ground level ozone as much as 75% more often than people in Boston and New York. Ohio River Valley ozone hospital admission rates also track this pattern with admission rates higher in the Ohio Valley than in the East. Similarly, some of the nation's highest and most persistent ozone smog violations are outside of the cities, in places considered pristine places like the Great Smokies (there were an astonishing 52 exceedances days of the 8 hour ozone standard in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1999 where it is now unhealthy to breathe on about half of the days of summer), Door County, Wisconsin, and the nation's seashore points.
The reason is not hard to discern. There is a high correlation between elevated ground level ozone and proximity to power plants especially in the Midwest and Southeast where roughly 60% of the nation's coal-fired generating capacity is located. In the Ohio Valley area studied, for example, emissions from coal- and oil-fired power plants contribute nearly fifty percent of elevated ozone levels in the Valley, enough by themselves to cause violations of the federal health standard.
Human health is not the only victim. There is strong scientific evidence showing that current levels of ground level ozone are reducing yields, particularly in sensitive species soybean, cotton, and peanuts. Annual crop loss from ozone for soybeans alone in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio has been calculated to fall between $200 350 Million. Ozone-induced growth and yield losses for the seven major commodity crops in the Southeast (sorghum, cotton, wheat barley, corn, peanuts and soybeans) are costing southeast farmers from $213-350 Million annually.
Fine particles
It is becoming increasingly clear that particulate matter is one of the most pervasive and dangerous air pollutants. Tens of thousands of deaths per year as many as 70,000--are attributable to fine particulate matter as well as hundreds of thousands of cases of heart and pulmonary disease. And a recent reanalysis by the Health Effects Institute of the landmark Harvard Six Cities and American Cancer Society studies - that led to the setting of the PM2.5 NAAQS and which were harshly criticized by industry -independently confirmed the robust link between PM2.5 and premature death.
Emissions from the electric power industry currently account for half or more of the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the U.S. east of the Mississippi, largely as a result of sulfur dioxide emissions. A recent study by researchers at the Harvard University School of Public Health of two coal-fired plants in Massachusetts, Brayton Point and Salem Harbor, estimated that particulate emissions from those two plants alone accounted for 159 premature deaths per year. Moreover, combining their fine particle and ozone precursor emissions, these power plants alone annually spawned 1,700 emergency room visits and more than 350,000 asthma attacks and other respiratory symptoms. Importantly, the highest mortality risks fall within 30 miles of the plants.
Acid Deposition
Acid deposition a problem still driven principally by sulfur and nitrogen emissions from the nation's power plants is a persistent problem that is unlikely to be solved by the existing Clean Air Act.
Lakes and streams and aquatic life that live in them are experiencing the most widespread impact from high concentrations of acidity. The majority of sensitive water bodies are those that are located atop soils with a limited ability to neutralize (or buffer) acidic compounds. Sensitive areas in the US include the Adirondack Mountains, Mid-Appalachians, southern Blue Ridge and high-elevation western lakes. Water bodies are affected not just by the chronic acidification that occurs from cumulative deposition but also by episodic acidification that occurs when pulses of highly acidic waters rush into lakes and streams during periods of snowmelt (acids have collected in the snow over the winter) and heavy downpours.
In some places, chronic and episodic acidification together has completely eradicated fish species. For example, acid-sensitive fish have disappeared and/or populations have been reduced in Pennsylvania streams where they formerly occurred in large numbers. Acidification, together with high levels of aluminum leaching, is blamed for the reduction in fish diversity that many Pennsylvania streams have experienced over the past 25-34 years.
Acid rain also saps calcium from the needles of trees, weakening the cell membranes and making the trees susceptible to damage from freezing in the winter and more vulnerable to diseases and/or insect outbreaks. Acid rain also depletes soil nutrients largely calcium and magnesium needed for healthy forest growth. The U.S. Geological Survey has shown that calcium in forest soils has decreased at locations in the northeastern and southeastern U.S. forest soils, with acid rain being one of the major factors contributing to this depletion.
Although most evidence shows that conifers tend to be more impacted than hardwood trees, acid rain is also hurting deciduous trees. Detection of patches of dead trees in northern hardwood forests of the Southern Appalachian National Forests has been attributed to the interactions of many stressors, including air quality.
Despite declines in power plant sulfur emissions due to 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, the acidity of many water bodies has not improved. Scientists believe that cuts called for in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act will not be adequate to protect surface water and forest soils of the northeastern US. To restore the very sensitive sites of southeastern Canada, the Canadian National Air Issues Coordinating Committee has called for a 75 percent cut of US SO2 beyond the current requirements of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.
Haze and Visibility
In the last several decades, visibility how far you can see on an average day has declined dramatically, especially in the Eastern half of the United States. In the East, annual mean visibility is commonly one quarter of natural conditions and as little as one eighth in the summer. One of the greatest casualties of this upsurge in regional haze has been the national parks. An example of the magnitude of visibility decline due to high air pollution levels is shown in the Shenandoah Park slide attached to this testimony.
There is no question that power plants are a major driver of this problem: visibility impairment has tracked closely in parallel with sulfate and electric power production for nearly half a century. Taken together, sulfur, carbon and nitrogen oxide emissions are responsible for well over 80% percent of this visibility impairment. When these components are assessed for their contribution to the problem, electric power is accountable for about two-thirds of the emissions that lead to regional haze-related visibility impairment in the East, most of which is caused by sulfate.
Nitrogen deposition
Power plant nitrogen emissions deposited on land and water sometimes at great distances from their original sources is another important contributor to declining water quality. Estuarine and coastal systems are especially vulnerable. Too much nitrogen serves as a fertilizer, causing excessive growth of seaweed. The result is visual impairment and loss of oxygen. With the loss of oxygen, many estuarine and marine species including fish cannot survive.
The contribution of nitrogen from atmospheric deposition varies by watershed. In the Chesapeake Bay, atmospheric nitrogen accounts for 27 percent of nitrogen entering the system. Of that amount, power plants account for about a third.
Nitrogen is also being deposited on ocean surfaces many, many miles away from land. Atmospheric nitrogen accounts for 46 to 57 percent of the total externally supplied (or new nitrogen) deposited in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin. Mercury
Mercury is another power plant pollutant that poses a threat to human health and the environment. Exposure to mercury in the U.S. primarily comes from the consumption of freshwater, estuarine, marine fish and shellfish. Across the U.S., mercury contaminates freshwater and saltwater fish populations, poses health risks to the people and wildlife consuming these fish and threatens the multibillion-dollar recreational and commercial fishing industries. State health departments in 40 states have issued advisories warning the public about consuming certain species of fish in certain water bodies, ten states have advisories for every water body and 13 now issue consumption advice for certain marine species. Methylmercury (the form of mercury in fish) is a developmental toxin and poses the greatest hazard during prenatal development. EPA has estimated that 3 million children and 4 million women of childbearing age are exposed to methylmercury at levels above what EPA considers safe.
Mercury pollution has been linked to a number of industrial sources. EPA estimates, however, that about a third of the nation's airborne mercury emissions come from power plant smokestacks; this assessment ignores the likely additional mercury flows coming from power plant solid waste streams. In addition, power plants are the only industrial source currently exempt from federal rules controlling mercury emissions.
Carbon Dioxide Emissions
The earth's temperature is on the rise, threatening wide-ranging climate change, and a likely driver of these changes, according to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its fall 1995 Report, is man-made greenhouse gas emissions. Increasingly, climate scientists have warned that if countries and industries do not stabilize and substantially reduce greenhouse gases we will see warmer temperatures, loss of coastal regions, the spread of infectious disease and increases in extreme weather events like heat waves, flooding, and tornadoes.
The trends are alarming: All 10 of the warmest years on record have occurred since 1980, and this century has been the warmest of the past 600 years. According to the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, the 1990s were warmer than the 1980's, previously the warmest decade on record. A Midwestern heat wave in 1995 caused more than 500 deaths in Chicago. In the summer of 1998, temperatures over 100 degrees for 15 straight days claimed more than 100 lives in the Dallas, TX region. 1998 was not only the hottest year on record it was also a record year for extreme weather damage. In 1998, the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared sixty-three weather-related major disasters in thirty-four states. By comparison, the average number of weather-related major disaster declarations per year in the 1980s was twenty-two.
The nation's electric power plants account for about a third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, the leading greenhouse gas.
Reductions appropriate in federal policy
In each of the above areas, the best scientific evidence calls for large reductions in emissions: -- In the case of sulfur, cuts of at least 75% are required to achieve ecosystem recovery and to protect human health from fine particle pollution. In addition, cuts at this level will improve visibility in our national parks. -- In the case of nitrogen oxides, cuts of at least 75% year round are required to help reduce summer ozone smog to levels protective of human health. Cuts at this level will also significantly lessen the nitrogen and acid rain impacts on our forests and water bodies, and further reduce haze. -- Mercury is highly toxic in small amounts, and, as for other industries, maximum available control thresholds should be pursued. A 90% cut in mercury emissions is achievable and necessary to protect human health. -- The world's climate change problem will not be solved without U.S. leadership including significant reductions from the power sector. An important start, consistent with the ratified Rio treaty and current Kyoto Protocol commitments, would be a return by the power sector to 1990 carbon dioxide emission levels by 2005.
Fortunately, the technology is at hand to dramatically reduce these power plant emissions and their resultant impacts throughout the nation, at reasonable costs. For example:
-- Power sector reductions of sulfur dioxide of 75% beyond current law are readily achievable through a combination of flue gas desulfurization (scrubbing) and adoption of cleaner fuels. -- Year round nitrogen reductions of 75% or more are achievable through a range of controls including selective catalytic and non-catalytic reduction technology, low NOx burners, overfire air, and adoption of cleaner fuels. -- Power sector reductions of mercury of 90% are feasible using a combination of commercial control technologies, and increased reliance on cleaner fuels and efficiency. -- Capping power sector emissions of carbon dioxide at 1990 levels is technically feasible. In the short run, this will require an expansion of the nation's use of gas-fired and low-carbon renewable energy sources; in the long run, solutions may also include expanded use of low-carbon renewable and advanced coal technologies.
Fixing the current system
Unfortunately, in the absence of a change in current federal policy, the nation is unlikely to achieve these necessary targets in a timely way and certainly not in a cost-efficient way. The reasons lie less in bad intentions than in the institutional and economic realities that flow from the current Clean Air Act:
-- The Act is designed to address air pollution from the power sector, and other economic sector, on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis. The result is that there are numerous EPA regulatory initiatives all underway at present affecting different pieces of the power plant pollution problem on different time scales, and with different geographic targets and often different criteria. (See schematic chart attached to this testimony). Each of these regulatory proceedings are subject to delay and court review: for example, it took nearly twenty years for EPA to promulgate final region-wide power plant NOx controls and regional haze targets. In addition, the regulated companies tend to respond to each new requirement with a short term focus that often precludes long term solutions with multiple benefits. For example, a failure to put in place sulfur and carbon targets at the same time as NOx controls will likely be received as a market signal to continue to ignore those pollutants, and attendant solutions, as NOx compliance plans are made.
-- The Act's requirements related to power plants are still largely driven by state-specific attainment of ambient pollution concentration limits rather than by the physical realities of power plant emissions which have simultaneous and far-ranging local, regional, and inter-regional impacts. A more common sense approach is to establish uniform, minimum environmental performance standards that reflect our best current understanding of emissions impacts at all geographic ranges, informed by the best available science, current technical feasibility, and reasonable technology-forcing requirements.
-- Finally, to date, enforcement of the Act has not addressed the significant problem of power plant longevity. Unlike autos, the bulk of the nation's power plants are more than 30 years old. While the 1970 Act requires modified and expanded older sources to meet modern emission performance standards, many such modified plants continue to operate in compliance with older standards resulting in emissions levels three to four times looser than modern emission requirements. By establishing emission caps for the power sector that reflect modern performance capabilities, we can end this pollution haven for "grandfathered" plants.
Elements of the solution
The time has come to improve on the Act's current regulatory scheme for power plants. Key elements of a better system include:
-- Mandatory and certain emissions targets for all four pollutants as described above.
While some have spoken of their interest in voluntary compliance approaches, we believe logic, equity and history counsel against this approach. First, breathing is not a voluntary choice, and polluters should not be permitted the choice to avoid requirements that permit safe breathing. Second, voluntary approaches potentially penalize companies that step forward, by giving their dirtier competitors a market edge. Third, perhaps because of this penalty, the history of voluntary emissions reductions in the power sector is not encouraging: experiments such as the Southern Appalachian Mountain Initiative, the federal greenhouse gas commitment program, the EPA's 1995-96 "Clean Air Power Initiative," and the Texas voluntary emissions reductions initiatives have yielded small participation and often poor follow-up.
-- Timely compliance.
Each of the pollutants under discussion are associated with different time scales for impacts, but the levels of reduction we have proposed should be achievable in a prompt manner. The burden of proof should be on those who believe that achieving these targets by the 2005 date specified in S. 1369, authored by Senator Jeffords, is not feasible.
-- Flexibility.
While flexibility measures such as emissions trading should be considered for some pollutants, they should be balanced by the imperatives of local health and ecosystem protection.
-- Incentives for continuous environmental improvement.
We must be careful, as we establish new emissions targets for the power sector, not to simply create a new class of "grandfathered" plants. Sensible measures for ensuring continuous environmental improvement in plant performance, as well as technology, should be considered.
The Senate bill that currently captures these desirable features most closely is the one sponsored by Senator Jeffords, S. 1369.
The time for action is here
The discussion we are having today is hardly new. It goes back at least to 1995, when EPA initiated its "Clean Air Power Initiative" designed to bring stakeholders together around a comprehensive set of pollution reductions. For a variety of reasons, that initiative never came to a consensus conclusion.
However, much has changed in the last five years to alter the landscape:
-- The science underlying reduction targets for ozone smog, acid rain, fine particles, haze, mercury and global warming has become more compelling.
-- Many states have moved ahead of the federal Clean Air Act signaling discontent with the status quo. Recently, for example, Massachusetts and New York announced initiatives to chop air pollution from "grandfathered" power plants by up to 75%. In Texas, some limited plant "degrandfathering" was enacted last year. And Connecticut and Illinois are actively considering such measures. While appropriately demonstrating leadership, however, the ultimate success and comprehensiveness of state actions will be limited due to the transport of pollution across state boundaries, and the fear of competitive economic disadvantage from taking unilateral state action.
-- Public opinion is increasingly supportive of steep power plant emission cutbacks. Opinion leaders throughout the Midwest and Southeast have voiced a concern about current emission levels, as evidenced by the major newspaper stories and editorials attached to this testimony.
-- Many voices in industry are recognizing the value of a comprehensive rather than a balkanized approach and the wisdom of not throwing good money after bad. Surely the devil will be in the details, but the stage has been set for a policy discussion that could drive us to a better, cleaner outcome.
I again appreciate the opportunity to speak, and look forward to your questions.