State of defiance; Ohio right to stand up to feds on
smog rules
Editorial
Copyright 1999 Columbus Dispatch
January 26, 1999
Ohio has taken a sound, solid stand for states' rights and
against faulty
science and unfunded federal mandates. In joining Michigan, West
Virginia and
Indiana last month in a court action challenging the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's new smog-control
rules, Ohio officials are protesting the latest wave of regulations
to hit the
Midwest harder than other states.
Midwesterners have been stuck with a disproportionate share
of the cost of
pollution cleanup for one reason: Coal is the prime source of
energy here.
Coal fired the Industrial Revolution and built the gleaming
alabaster cities
cited in patriotic song. Now coal is a dirty word, and whatever is
released
into the air while burning it continues to be the target of
environmental
regulations defined by political winds rather than scientific
realities.
The Clean Air Act of 1990 imposed stringent acid-rain
controls on the Midwest,
in the face of a $ 500 million study that showed few hoped-for
benefits would
materialize, despite the enormous expense to consumers and
businesses. For
example, researchers concluded that reducing pollution would have
little
effect on acid lakes in the Northeast and that individual liming of
them would
be the most cost-effective way to change their nature.
Similarly, the
EPA's new anti-smog rules have little basis in science and flunk
the common-sense
test.
Imagine that your neighbors spread trash all over their
yard, but you've tried hard to keep your property tidy. Still, the
lid on your
garbage can isn't tight, and sometimes the wind carries paper into
the already
unsightly space next door. Your neighbor complains, so your local
government
passes a
law requiring you to buy a better can.
This scenario illustrates the fallacy of the feds' plan to
fight nitrogen
oxides, which, in sunlight, mix with hydrocarbons, such as those
given off by
automobiles, to form ozone, a key element in smog.
The agency has asked Ohio and other Midwestern states to
nearly eliminate some sources of nitrogen oxides, which, when
carried by the
wind to Eastern cities, contribute to the smog there.
At the same time, many Eastern cities haven't come close to
meeting existing
clean-air rules, not because of something drifting in from the west
but because
of their own failure to
reduce pollution at the local level.
The
EPA demands that power-plant and industrial emissions of nitrogen
oxides be cut by
85 percent.
This hits West Virginia hardest, requiring that state to
make a 51 percent
reduction in such pollution overall; next hardest-hit are Ohio and
Indiana, each asked to make 36 percent reductions.
Ohio and five other states proposed a plan to cut
nitrogen-oxide emissions of
utilities by 65 percent by 2004 and to meet some Clean Air Act
standards sooner
than the law requires. Further, this plan
calls for additional studies to determine whether the changes in
the discharges
are achieving the desired effect.
The court case accuses the feds of trampling on states'
authority to decide how
to meet Clean Air Act standards, because the
EPA dictated pollution cuts by power plants and other coal-burning
industries.
The rules ignore other means of reducing smog in cities,
such as increasing
mass transit or offering incentives to remove old cars from the
road.
As with all federal mandates, those on smog come without
any funding. Yet
again, federal bureaucrats pay scant attention to
sound science and ask for industry and consumers to pay up, no
matter how
painful.
The average Ohioan would see electric bills rise by about
10 percent. In this
era of low inflation, few people's salaries increase at anything
approaching
such a steep
climb.
Reducing power-plant emissions in the Midwest won't make a
substantial
difference in the smog of Eastern cities, because the major source
of that smog
is home-grown. Studies by the Ozone Transport Assessment Group show
that
reductions in ozone-causing emissions at a
plant primarily benefit an area 250 miles downwind. Pollution
controls at a
power plant on the Ohio River won't help the people in Columbus and
Cleveland,
let alone someone in New York or Boston.
But the East has powerful political clout,
so no one should be surprised that the U.S.
EPA decided to buy into all that finger-pointing at the Midwest.
Ohio's air is the cleanest it has been in 20 years, and,
yes, existing federal
laws have played a role. Ohio's utilities and other industries can
reduce
pollution further;
no one suggests that the status quo is adequate.
The six-state alternative plan to limit ozone is
reasonable, protects the
health of the people in those states and provides for a
cost-benefit analysis
to determine if additional pollution controls make sense. The Ohio
Environmental Protection Agency plans to
work on that plan, even though the U.S.
EPA rejected it.
That Ohio and other states have to fight the feds in court
to protect Americans
from politically driven, overreaching regulation is unfortunate but
necessary.
Every locale in the nation should be responsible for first
cleaning up the
pollution
in its own back yard before complaints about its neighbors are
given any
credence.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to
post a public comment on the Trash Talk
Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private
comment to the Junkman.
Material presented on this home page constitutes opinion of
Steven J. Milloy.
Copyright © 1998 Citizens for the Integrity of
Science. All rights reserved on original material. Material
copyrighted by others is used either with permission or under a
claim of "fair
use." Site developed and hosted by WestLake
Solutions, Inc.