Good morning. My name is Sharon Treat, and I am a State Senator in Maine, where I am the Senate Chair of the Legislature's Joint Standing Committee on Natural Resources. I also chair the National Conference of State Legislatures' Science, Energy, and Environmental Resources Committee, although I am not here today to speak on that committee's behalf. I serve as one of Maine's two representatives on the Ozone Transport Commission, and am a regular participant in regional forums through the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), an organization representing the air pollution control programs in the eight northeast states.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you from the perspective of a Northeast state about ozone transport and its regulation. There are three ideas which I think must shape any response to this issue. First, the regional transport of ozone is a very real and significant problem. Second, the amount of ozone flowing into the northeastern states from the west prevents them from effectively limiting their ozone levels. Third, without effective federal regulation of ozone transport levels the northeastern states will never be able to attain compliance with existing or proposed EPA standards.
It is unfortunate that testimony on each panel is limited to only one representative of the more than dozen states that support the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to control NOx pollution under Section 110 of the Clean Air Act. Our perspectives and experience do differ, and it would have been helpful for the committee to hear from additional supporting states. My comments, therefore, are from the regional perspective of the Northeast states and reflect the regional approach Maine is taking in collaboration with our neighbors. I am honored to be here to present both Maine and the Northeast states' support for sound and equitable solutions to our Nation's shared air quality concerns.
At the outset, it is important to stress that the Northeast states are not asking our upwind neighbors to take any regulatory actions under Section 110 that we are not willing to impose upon ourselves. Nor are we asking upwind states to take actions that only benefit distant downwind states. The reality is, whether downwind or upwind, ozone pollution is a problem that needs to be addressed. It affects our most vulnerable citizens, children and the elderly, and it knows no political boundaries.
Already this year, the smog has been really bad -- and summer just started Monday. Between May 1 and June 12 of this year, Ohio experienced 181 exceedances of the health-based 8-hour ozone standard, with 12 days over 0.085 parts per million (ppm); Michigan had 76 exceedances, with 15 days over 0.085 ppm; North Carolina had 43 exceedances, with 7 days over 0.085 ppm; and Georgia had 39 exceedances with 15 days over 0.085 ppm. North Carolina and Ohio also have multiple exceedances of the one-hour standard during this time frame. Clearly, any reductions in NOx emissions by upwind states will directly benefit the health of their citizens and the quality of their environment.
REGIONAL OZONE TRANSPORT
The scientific community has long recognized the regional nature of the smog problem. Over the past 25 years, a significant amount of research has appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific literature documenting that the long-distance movement of smog affects not only the Northeast, but areas in the Midwest and Southeast as well.
Scientific observations have documented ozone transport across the eastern United States. In 1980, George Wolff, now with the General Motors Research Laboratories, coined the term "ozone river" to describe three July 1978 ozone episodes in which "a distinct area of high ozone concentrations was observed flowing northeastward in a 'river', extending from the southwest Gulf Coast to New England." In 1979, scientists using aircraft measurements followed a mass of high ozone from central Ohio into the Northeast Corridor where incoming ozone levels reached 90 parts per billion. Most recently, scientists with the North American Research Strategy for Tropospheric Ozone (NARSTO) observed ozone levels above 80 parts per billion entering the western (upwind) boundary of the Northeast Corridor on the morning of high ozone days during the summer of 1995.
These levels of transported ozone have been observed for a number of years, are a significant fraction of the 120 parts per billion one-hour federal ozone standard, and are clearly beyond the control of local reduction efforts within the Northeast Corridor. Of course, the Northeast is not alone in suffering the ill effects of transported smog and its precursors. The Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality's May 1999 issue of its Air Quality Update recognized that long range ozone transport also affects Oklahoma. The Department discovered during a review of its ozone data from 1998 that pollution from wildfires in southern Mexico likely contributed to high ozone levels in the Oklahoma City area (attached). It isn't a big leap in logic to recognize that forest fires and the burning of fossilized trees (coal) have similar transport impacts when the wind blows.
Recently, the chief of the air pollution control division in Ohio, Robert Hodanbosi, explained during a June 1999 high ozone event in the city of Columbus that ozone levels built up because "the sun is very bright today, there are no clouds, and the wind isn't blowing." (The Columbus Dispatch, June 10, 1999) That is correct. When the wind blows, the Northeast receives this pollution.
Just as the flow of ozone from points west overwhelms the pollution control efforts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and others, emissions from those states take their toll on New England. Ultimately, each state's air quality is inexorably linked to that of its neighbors as emissions and ozone cascade from west to east.
TRANSPORT TO MAINE
Maine is uniquely situated at the receiving end of much of this smog. Locations along the Maine coastline far removed from urban centers, such as Acadia National Park, typically exceed the one-hour federal ozone standard during the late evening and overnight hours. Indeed, some of the highest levels of ozone in the state and in the country have been measured in Acadia Park. These are times when the ozone could not possibly be formed locally because there is no significant sunshine available to drive the ozone-forming chemical reactions. Maine and many rural areas of the country will be unable to achieve clean air unless all major smokestacks in the Eastern U.S. are required to implement cost-effective modern pollution control equipment. In fact, it was the thirty-seven state OTAG (Ozone Transport Assessment Group) process that identified large fossil fuel fired utility and non-utility boilers as the most cost effective method to reduce the transport of ozone in the eastern U.S.
Let me be perfectly clear that regional upwind control efforts are needed to augment and not replace additional local measures. Our demand is simply that the bulk of our local measures go toward achieving clean air and not offsetting someone else's pollution. To put things in perspective, the NOx emissions from all source categories (e.g., automobiles, trucks, power plants) in Portland, Maine's largest city, totaled almost 28,000 tons in 1996. By comparison, a single power plant in southern Ohio emitted over four times as much NOx during the same year.
MAINE'S RESPONSE TO AIR QUALITY PROBLEMS
While the State of Maine is itself not subject to the NOx SIP Call, Maine's Governor Angus King has made a commitment to achieve the same level of NOx reductions from major stationary pollution sources within the State. Maine has also signed an Ozone Transport Commission Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing the State to achieve similar NOx reductions from our major stationary sources. The State joined with eleven other states in 1994 and agreed in an MOU to reduce NOx emissions from electric utilities and large stationary sources by up to 75 percent, roughly twice the mandatory reductions required under the Clean Air Act for sources located in nonattainment areas.
It is my understanding that all the NESCAUM states are seeking to implement NOx controls in the timeframes envisioned in EPA's final rule. While the recent injunction imposed by the D.C. Circuit Court has temporarily delayed the federal requirement for action, it has not diminished the activity of those Northeast states committed to achieving clean air in the most cost-effective manner possible.
Maine has received some criticism of its other air quality control measures, particularly after the failure of the aborted Car Test program. However, the fact is Maine has implemented a motor vehicle emission inspection and maintenance program and has adopted the California Low Emission Vehicle Program. Maine ceased the use of reformulated gas (RFG), but only after an extensive drinking water testing program showed clear evidence of widespread MTBE contamination. The low RVP fuels now required in Maine will meet EPA requirements without the use of MTBE. Additional mobile source reductions are achieved through a Stage II Vapor Control System.
Maine can and will impose tough restrictions on both NOx and VOC emissions, but without reductions in upwind states will still have a smog problem. Speaking as an elected official, who has herself long supported stringent in-state controls on stationary and mobile sources, I can report that this creates a major public policy problem in our state. Mainers and other northeasterners have been willing, time and again, to impose restrictions on themselves and their industries to control pollution. But when scientific modeling and data demonstrate that implementing an I/M program will not alter attainment status, and that the emissions from a single uncontrolled Midwestern power plant can emit twice as much NOx per day as all sources in Vermont combined, it is understandable that the inconvenience and cost of such a program can be a tough sell for the downwind state.
NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF LOW AIR QUALITY
Exposure to chronic ozone levels below the one-hour standard harm the public's health in a number of ways. These include:
Increased airway responsiveness in the general population.
Increased severity and incidence of asthma attacks.
Increased severity and incidence of respiratory infections.
Increased prevalence of chronic respiratory symptoms.
Development of chronic respiratory bronchiolitis.,
For example, in Maine ozone causes breathing difficulty for 395,000 people - approximately one-third of our population - who have respiratory ailments, are elderly or are children. The American Lung Association of Maine recently stated that "one out of every twelve kids in Maine has asthma" - a frightening statistic for our next generation.
In addition to ozone health effects, Maine as well as the entire Northeast is affected by other environmental and public health impacts caused by NOx pollution. Maine's economy is dependent on our natural resources -- forestry, fishing, agriculture and tourism. Chronic exposure to elevated smog levels may be accelerating the death rates of some tree species in our eastern forests, which could alter the forests' value as timber and recreational resources. A study by the National Academy of sciences recently reported that leaves of ozone-damaged plants often die and fall off in late summer, reducing the beauty of a forest's fall foliage. Fall foliage tourism in Maine is a multi-million dollar industry.
Nitric acid formed from NOx is a constituent of acid rain that contributes to long-term damage in many eastern lakes and forest soils. Indeed, acid rain has been pointed to as the culprit in the diminished productivity and value of northern Maine and Vermont sugarbush (maple syrup producing trees). Nitrogen deposited from the air into bays and estuaries leads to oxygen-depleting algal blooms, harming aquatic life in some of our most economically productive marine ecosystems.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, for over twenty years our country has perpetuated an illogical system in which pollution is free from the law as soon as it crosses state lines. The illogic and inequity of punishing downwind states for forces beyond our control has led to a host of tortured policies, like EPA's decision in 1982 to designate the state of Rhode Island to be in "attainment but for transport." In human speak this means the air was clean but for the pollution. After 20 years of collecting and reviewing the scientific data, EPA has finally responded with a measured first step to diminish the magnitude of NOx transport across state lines. All states will benefit from the cost-effective pollution reductions required under the EPA approach.
It is unfortunate that the inaction on the part of our neighbors has forced us to turn to the federal government for relief. As a state legislator, I would have preferred standing shoulder to shoulder with my upwind counterparts to announce that states had joined together in a necessary effort to protect public health. Sadly, that option has not and apparently will not present itself. It is precisely in the cases when states can not reach rational outcomes alone that federal action is required. EPA should be commended for its recent efforts to bring science and fairness back to our air pollution control efforts. Thank you.