Tuesday, February 29, 2000
Regional industries complain to senators about EPA rules
Operators say law confusing, unfair
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Uncertainty, delay and threats to reliability bedevil industries afflicted by federal attempts to police pollution from older facilities, spokesmen complained Monday to a U.S. Senate subcommittee convened in Cincinnati.
It's so bad that oil, paper and utility companies are being penalized retroactively for fixes done years ago and hesitate even to make repairs that might reduce pollution, they said.
That contention was rejected by David G. Hawkins, once a top Environmental Protection Agency official and now spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
He said EPA doesn't penal ize firms for routine repairs if they don't increase pollution. And what industry spokesmen called unfathomable, new scrutiny has been around for years.
Republican Sens. James Inhofe of Oklahoma and George Voinovich of Ohio came to Cincinnati to probe EPA's proposal to tighten “new source review” regulations.
“New source” refers generally to facilities that emit air pollution and were built after 1977. Congress subjected them to stricter smog controls than those built previously.
However, older, dirtier facilities — including the majority of coal-fired Ohio Valley power plants — must undergo new source review and might have to install current smog controls if they make major modifications.
In the proposed rule under scrutiny, EPA redefines more routine maintenance as modifications requiring new-source review.
Before the clean air subcommittee took testimony in the Hamilton County board room, environmentalists outside protested being excluded. Witnesses had been invited.
They called it a “dirty air hearing” and accused the senators of being pro-business at the expense of public health. “We're the ones who breathe the air,” complained Rachael Belz, the Ohio Citizen Action organizer in Cincinnati.
Inside, Mr. Voinovich set the tone, saying, “Southwest Ohio cares a great deal about clean air and the environment ... We want a clean environment but we want reasonable rules.”
U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democrat whose 6th District covers much of southern Ohio, testified first. He called for a “better balance” between productivity and clean air and cited his constituents' “fear of regulations that may hamper job creation.”
Joe Bynum, an executive vice president of the Tennessee Valley Authority, said EPA often cannot tell his co-workers when proposed repairs require new source review.
He said initial uncertainty and the year it typically takes to negotiate a review threatenTVA's electricity supply if a generator must be out of service until EPA makes a decision, a sentiment Cinergy's William F. Tyndall seconded.
Bob Slaughter, director of public policy for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, called the new source review “hopelessly confusing” at best and “at worst, paralyzing.”
W. Henson Moore, president and chief executive officer of the American Forest and Paper Association, said new source review is so bad “nobody at EPA knows how it works.”
Mr. Tyndall, vice president of environmental and federal affairs for Cinergy Services Inc., said the proposed new rules invite a “food fight with EPA” every time a major repair is required.
He said the Tristate would be in trouble if agency overreaching kept a generator out of service because “We don't have excess power in this area” and the entire Midwest has only “narrow reserve margins.”
John S. Seitz, director of EPA's office of air quality planning and standards, said he was surprised by the testimony because the agency adopted new source rules 20 years ago and published its authoritative guidance in the late 1980s.
EPA receives “relative few” questions about when a routine repair might require a new source review, he said. “"We'll have to look closely at that.”
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