My remarks reflect the perspective I have gained during my time as Commissioner at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, as well as my experience as director of environmental programs in the natural gas distribution division of a $15 billion diversified international energy services company, where I worked for 17 years.
The Clean Air Act sets out broad goals. In the first wave of environmental protection, back in the seventies, we used "command and control" techniques to address air pollution from large, industrial point sources of pollution. Times have changed. I believe we are now ready for what I call "the second wave of environmental protection," which allows the states more flexibility and encourages true innovation. Under current regulations, states are allowed limited flexibility, but we need more. We believe it is possible to craft a program that allows flexibility without compromising the environment, safety or health. Environmental laws cannot be static, because our impact on our environment is not static.
While the structure of the Clean Air Act has worked, I will suggest several changes that can be made to improve the use of this tool in the 21st century.
Let me begin by telling you what I will discuss today.
· The effect of the Clean Air Act in Minnesota; · States' need for funding to carry out mandates; · What Minnesota has learned about toxic air pollutants; and · Integrated, cost-effective environmental regulation of power generation.
The Effect of the Clean Air Act in Minnesota
Twenty-eight years ago Minnesota had its first air pollution health alert. It was February 11, 1972, and it was almost 20 degrees below zero. A grimy brown haze choked the Minneapolis skyline and visibility was bad even at ground level (overhead of photo, "February 11, 1972," in attachments, from Minnesota Environment 20001). The five-year-old Minnesota Pollution Control Agency scrambled to get the word out to warn people with asthma and heart disease to stay indoors.
In the following years, the Clean Air Act's strong anti-pollution requirements for smokestacks and cars helped reduce sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and other criteria air pollutants. In Minnesota, these efforts paid off. We have not had an air pollution health alert since 1987.
Today, unlike many other states, Minnesota meets all federal air quality standards. The Clean Air Act was a tool Minnesota desperately needed in 1972. Using that tool, we were able to take a dangerously deteriorating air quality situation and turn it around in less than 20 years.
States' Need for Funding to Carry Out Mandates
The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 created a new mechanism to help fund the requirements of the act: emission fees. These air emission fees were intended to pay for many of the new requirements in the amendments. In Minnesota, emission fees cover 80 percent of the air program's needs. The fee amount specified by the Clean Air Act Amendments ($25/ton, with adjustments for cost of living) is not enough to pay for the costs it was intended to cover. Not long ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states concluded that there was about a $100 million gap between funding necessary to carry out Clean Air Act activities and funding available to states.2 I suspect things have only gotten worse since then.
For example, the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments required states to complete issuing all permits for major facilities (Title V Permits) by 1998. Now, in the year 2000, two years after that deadline, many states have issued fewer than half their permits. Minnesota is in the same boat. We have issued about 160 permits less than half. The good news is that, because we intentionally chose to target the largest emission sources, those 160 permits cover 75 percent of our emissions. The bad news is that about 200 permits have yet to be issued and we do not have the resources to issue them faster. To make matters even worse, the first permits we issued five years ago are now approaching the end of their five-year shelf life.
With states being this far behind in permitting, funding is clearly inadequate for the task at hand. As Congress considers changes to the Act, please also consider the funding necessary to operate an adequate air quality program.
Nationally, states collect 94 percent of environmental data, conduct 97 percent of facility inspections, operate about 70 percent of the federal programs delegated to them, conduct about 80 percent of the enforcement actions, and contribute about twice as much funding to environmental programs as the U.S. EPA.3
Ten years after the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, it is clear that the total package of funding available to states emission fees, other state funds and federal grants is not sufficient to adequately cover the costs of Clean Air Act-related activities. One example of a funding shortfall is the multi-year process to reduce regional haze.
What Minnesota Has Learned About Toxic Air Pollutants
When the world of air pollution consisted only of six criteria pollutants, we felt pretty smug in Minnesota. We did not have problems as serious as those in cities such as Los Angeles or Houston, and we were successfully addressing the air pollution problem we did have (overhead of, "Trends in criteria air pollutants in the Twin Cities area, in attachments).1 As this figure shows, all criteria pollutants except nitrogen dioxide dropped from 1990 to 1998. This was achieved at the same time vehicle miles traveled continued to climb and our state economy continued to grow. This is a clear indication that economic growth and environmental protection can go hand in hand.4
However, we do not feel so smug any more. Thanks to researchers, scientists, health professionals and U.S. EPA, we know that the world of air pollution is more complex than anyone dreamed back in 1972.
Just two years ago, U.S. EPA completed the air toxics component of its Cumulative Exposure Project5 which used computer models to assess 1990 outdoor concentrations of air toxics across the continental United States. Air toxics also known as toxic air pollutants or hazardous air pollutants are a group of chemicals associated with a variety of adverse health problems, including cancer, neurological effects, and reproductive and developmental effects. The U.S. EPA data suggest that half our increased risk of cancer (over and above the risk from smoking, consumption of certain foods and genetics) comes from air toxics emitted by our cars, trucks and other engines. In Minnesota, we did not just rely on U.S. EPA's computer model. Over the last few years, we have been monitoring the outdoor air. We have actually measured 75 different air toxics around our state, in locations ranging from farms to small towns to big cities. What we found was disturbing.6 Our report was published in a scientific peer-reviewed journal this month.7
We found that when compared with health benchmarks, 10 air toxics exceeded thresholds in either modeled (predictions in the U.S. EPA's study) or monitored (actual measurements by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) concentrations or both.
Five of these pollutants (formaldehyde, benzene, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, ethylene dibromide) exceeded health benchmarks in some or all regions of Minnesota. In several cases, measured concentrations were actually higher than U.S. EPA's predictions in the Cumulative Exposure Project. We are now in the process of developing the capacity to measure the rest of the 10 pollutants where there is reason to suspect high concentrations. These pollutants include 1,3 butadiene, acrolein and chromium.
Many of the air toxics with the highest concentrations are primarily from cars, trucks, buses and other engines. For those chemicals, concentrations were highest by far in the Twin Cities. But, surprisingly, we found that one cannot escape air toxics by moving to a home far from urban centers. In rural Minnesota, even a town like Granite Falls, with a population of 3,000, showed measured concentrations of some toxics above health benchmarks.
The federal government must no longer delay taking further action. While the provisions for point sources in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments have made a difference, there is clearly much more that needs to be done about mobile sources of air toxics both on and off-road.
Although we appreciate U.S. EPA's efforts to regulate mobile sources, we believe they must turn their attention to reducing air toxics now. New amendments to the Clean Air Act must include air toxics regulation in order to ratchet down toxic tailpipe emissions from cars, trucks, buses and small engines. Requiring further improvements in fuel efficiency will also help reduce air toxics. We need national, rather than regional or state-by-state, standards. We also need to require cleaner burning fuels for all internal combustion engines. We need to standardize fuels and reduce the number of different "boutique" fuels around the country. The current situation, with different fuels specified for use in different parts of the country leads to spot fuel shortages and higher gasoline prices something we are experiencing in the Midwest.
I think we can accomplish all this while maintaining a significant role for homegrown ethanol as a fuel component. Ethanol production is an important industry in the Midwest. In Minnesota, we have successfully incorporated ethanol into our fuels with significant environmental benefit and, we do not have the MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether) problem other states are facing.
U.S. EPA tells us they plan to decide about further reductions in mobile sources of air pollution in the year 2004. Given what we measured in Minnesota, I believe we cannot wait that long.
U.S. EPA also says they are working on an Urban Air Toxics Strategy. They have collected information on what everyone around the country is doing about urban air toxics. Frankly, I do not think of that as a strategy. I think of that as a list. We do not need a list. We need leadership, we need a real national urban air toxics strategy with specific goals that we can all focus on, so we can improve the air people breathe daily. And, given the health threat, we need a strategy now.
A recent study in Denver showed that children living near heavily traveled streets have six times the risk of developing cancer and leukemia as other children.8 Research reported in the British medical journal The Lancet estimates that six percent of all deaths in Austria, France and Switzerland are due to air pollution and that half of those are due to mobile source pollution.9
Research carried out by the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston shows a direct connection between heart attacks and air pollution.10 The scientists found that the higher the day's particulate pollution concentration, the more people died of heart attacks even when particulate levels remained well below the standard proposed by U.S. EPA.
In other words, people are dying of heart attacks brought on by particulate pollution so low we assumed it was harmless. Even when U.S. EPA's recently promulgated diesel and gasoline standards go into effect, clearly more will be needed to solve particulate pollution problems.
The cost of the illnesses described in these studies is too high, both financially and socially. We can not allow more delay.
Integrated, Cost-effective Environmental Regulation of Power Generation This is a lake located in the unique Voyageurs National Park on the Minnesota-Canada border. This remote area of forests and lakes is northern Minnesota's spectacular crown jewel11 (overhead in attachments). Hundreds of beautiful lakes just like it are scattered across the region. If you should decide to do any fishing in this lake next summer, we'd be obliged to warn you that you cannot safely eat more than one meal of fish per week of most fish caught in this pristine-looking lake. Pregnant women and children in your family cannot safely eat more than one meal of fish per month from this lake. The fish in this lake and in many other lakes in this remote wilderness area contain too much mercury.
The mercury got into the fish from the water. Much of that mercury got into the water from mercury deposition from the air. It got into the air from mercury-emitting sources such as power plants, hundreds and even thousands of miles away.
We have taken significant steps to improve this situation in Minnesota, reducing our own mercury emissions by more than 50 percent. But most of the mercury in our fish comes from sources outside our borders.12
Coal-fired electric utility plants are one of the largest sources of mercury emissions in this country. We know that if we further reduce emissions from coal-fired plants and develop and convert to other methods of power generation, we will not only cut mercury emissions but other pollutant emissions, too.
Increasing demand for electric power has brought us face to face with tough environmental issues. What do we do about the transportation of air pollution across state borders? What will be the effects of regulating the tiniest of particles in the air, PM2.5? What do we do about regional haze? Do we need to do more to reduce acid rain in the northeast? What about toxic emissions from burning coal? What about climate change?
These questions and the programs we have created to address them are like separate trains heading down separate tracks, each carrying a few passengers to separate destinations. We need one big train on one single track, so we can get everyone on board, all heading to the same place. We need a comprehensive, integrated national power generation strategy that regulates multiple pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, mercury and other toxic pollutants. The strategy should set national goals and schedules that allow flexibility for industry in how to meet them. And we need a strategy that once and for all deals with old coal-fired power plants that have been "grandfathered" into existing regulations.
An integrated national approach should be long-term in nature. It should target both new and old plants, both large and small. However, for the existing population of old plants, a long-term schedule of plant renovation or phase out should be implemented to limit disruption of electricity supply and economic costs. Again, the critical element is for the government to establish a set of schedules and performance standards for all facilities and allow electric utilities and independent power producers maximum flexibility in meeting those standards.
The energy regulatory and environmental arms of the legislative and administrative branches of government need to start talking in concert with the industry. They need to acknowledge the problems on both sides and establish goals. It is a huge process, but one that must be initiated. We cannot ignore the environmental problems caused by global warming on one side, nor the dependence of our economy on energy on the other.
I flew to Washington today from St. Louis, where I participated in a conference on energy and the environment. It was sponsored by the Environmental Council of States, the National Association of Regulated Utility Commissioners, the National Association of State Energy Organizations, and the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators and Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (STAPPA/ALAPCO), with some funding provided by the U.S. EPA. I will pass on to you the most important piece of advice I heard there: If we try to achieve environmental results pollutant by pollutant, we will hamstring the industry and never achieve what we want in the end anyway. And we'll risk an increasing number of brownouts and blackouts throughout the country as utilities struggle to meet separate requirements on separate schedules.
Piecemeal programs targeting the power industry (acid rain, new ozone standard, PM2.5, regional haze and ozone transport, climate change) have led to enormous uncertainty and cost-inefficiencies. Because no one is sure of what to expect from regulators, utilities delay environmental decisions, even delay decisions on new generating capacity. This cannot continue without eroding the reliable power supply of our nation. Our lack of focus isn't good for the environment; it is not good for the industry; and it is not good for the citizens of the United States, who want and deserve both a reliable source of energy and a clean environment. A comprehensive and integrated approach to the power industry could lead to impressive environmental gains for our children without sacrificing growth in power capacity.
I am certain we can develop an approach that can successfully balance environmental needs, cost-effectiveness and reliability. Amendments to the Clean Air Act must address a comprehensive and integrated approach to the power utility industry.
You asked me to address what is working and what needs to be changed in the Clean Air Act. In addition to what I've mentioned (funding, air toxics and an integrated environmental energy strategy), we need to further simplify the permitting program. Right now, the biggest time drain in permitting is the new source review and prevention of significant deterioration regulations. These regulations were well intended, but are too complicated. Too many sources undergoing modification are using these rules to try to avoid new emission controls. Grey areas in these regulations have resulted in a recent onslaught of legal and enforcement actions across the country. It may be time for us to discuss whether it would be better for all, the regulated community and the regulators, to end the practice of "grandfathering" existing sources (with reasonable timeframes) and to require all sources undergoing modifications to meet minimum pollution control standards.
It is also important that cross-media questions be addressed. For instance, a neglected aspect of coal-fired generation is the fate of literally millions of tons of bottom and fly ash containing high concentrations of heavy metals. When we develop policies on air, too often we ignore parallel effects on our lands and waters. Cross media concerns that link the Clean Air Act to the Clean Water Act and other federal legislation and rules need to be better developed.
I want to thank you for inviting me here to provide Minnesota's perspective on changes needed to the Clean Air Act. I believe these changes are necessary to improve the air in our environment and therefore, the health and quality of life for the people of the United States of America. I believe these changes are necessary if we are to live up to the promise of the Clean Air Act.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Footnotes
1 Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Environment 2000, St. Paul, Minn.: MPCA, 2000, http://www.pca.state.mn.us/about/pubs/mnereport/index.html
2 "Sagamore Study," prepared by U.S. EPA and presented by Jerry Kurtzweg at STAPPA/ALAPCO May 15, 1997 meeting.
3 Testimony of George Dana Bisbee, Assistant Commissioner, New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and Chairman, ECOS Data Management Workgroup, before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, September 26, 2000.
4 Meyer, S. "Environmentalism and Economic Prosperity: An Update," February 16, 1993, available on MIT website at http://web.mit.edu/polisci/mpepp/reports.htm
5 Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov/cumulativeexposure/air/air.htm
6 Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Staff Paper on Air Toxics, St. Paul, Minn.: MPCA, Nov. 1999, http://www.pca.state.mn.us/air/airtoxics.html#paper)
7 Pratt G., Palmer K., et al., "An Assessment of Air Toxics in Minnesota," Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 108, Number 9, September 2000.
8 Pearson R., Wachtel H., Ebi, K., "Distance-Weighted Traffic Density in Proximity to a Home is a Risk Factor for Leukemia and Other Childhood Cancers," Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, Vol. 50, Feb. 2000.
9 Kunzli, N., Kaiser, R. et. al., "Public-health Impact of Outdoor and Traffic-Related Air Pollution: a European Assessment," The Lancet, Vol. 356, September 2, 2000.
10 "Re-analysis of the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Society Study of Particulate Air Pollution and Mortality," (Health Effects Institute, Cambridge, Mass.: July, 2000).
11 Photo courtesy of Minnesota Office of Tourism.
12 Report on the Mercury Contamination Reduction Initiative: Advisory Council's Results and Recommendations, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, March 1999,
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/hot/legislature/reports/1999/mercury.pdf