Monday, February 28, 2000
Panel tackling smog rules
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The touchy question of tougher smog controls on older local power plants will be the focus of a U.S. Senate subcommittee field hearing today in Cincinnati.
The public hearing will be on the sixth floor of the Hamilton County Administration Building, 138 E. Court St., at 2:30 p.m.
The subcommittee on clean air is chaired by Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, and is part of the environment and public works committee. Ohio Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich is a member of the subcommittee and is expected to attend.
The topic will be a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for tougher “new source review” regulations. “New source” refers to anything built after 1977. These power plants are subject to stricter smog controls than those built before 1977.
Older, dirtier facilities must install up-to-date smog controls after major modifications subject them to new-source standards.
In its proposed new rules, the EPA wants to redefine what utilities call routine maintenance as modifications requiring new-source review and pollution controls. The EPA also wants to tighten some of those controls.
What constitutes a major modification is an unresolved issue for Cinergy, which was sued in November by the Justice Department.
The EPA said the utility failed to install current new-source pollution-control equipment after work at Beckjord power station in Clermont County. Cinergy said it complied with the rules in place when the work was done and the EPA unfairly is applying tougher standards retroactively.
Environmentalists last week complained that today's hearing is an attempt to frustrate the enforcement of the Clean Air Act on behalf of industrial interests, notably the electric power industry.
Not true, Inhofe spokesman Gary Hoitsma responded on Sunday, but “it's not totally unfair” to say Mr. Inhofe is more a friend of the utility industry than a standard-bearer for environmentalists, he said.
Mr. Inhofe is on record as saying “the EPA hasn't been as cooperative with industry as they could be” on air pollution, Mr. Hoitsma said.
During his eight years as governor, Mr. Voinovich argued that new EPA air pollution limits were unfair or unnecessary.
Today's hearing comes five days after a Ohio Environmental Council survey attributed 914 emergency-room visits in 1997 to smog-aggravated respiratory illnesses along the Ohio River.
The council did not estimate the additional medical attention's costs, but the Greater Cincinnati Health Council said that in 1997 there were 305 hospitalizations for respiratory disease in Hamilton, Clermont, Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties, costing $2.5 million. Those figures do not include emergency room visits and medical care for smog-induced asthma and other respiratory ailments.
Today's hearing reflects at least three concerns.
First, there is an argument over the contribution of Ohio Valley power plants to local air pollution and smog problems as far as New England.
Second, critics say utilities are boosting output from older plants rather than cleaner, costlier new facilities.
Third, environmentalists say that even though the Tristate has brought its smog under control, the air is not clean enough, and tougher federal standards — stalled in the courts — are needed to protect health adequately.
In addition to the Justice Department, New York has also sued Cinergy, saying Beckjord was among many plants whose pollutants made it impossible to clean up air in Northeast states.
That hasn't gone unchallenged.
“The current administration at EPA has a very clear anti-coal bias,” Cinergy spokesman Steve Brash said recently. “And the Northeast has a clear economic disadvantage competing against the lower cost of power in the Midwest.
“Anything they can do to raise the cost of Midwest power works to their advantage. We have always been willing to do our fair share, but we want to make sure it is indeed a fair share for us and that we're not being forced to pick up someone else's share.”
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