WASHINGTON, DC, January 30, 2004 (ENS) - The Clean Air Act has brought dramatic improvements in air quality across the United States, but the federal government must take a more flexible and comprehensive approach to confront current and future air pollution challenges, says a report released Thursday by a federal panel of experts.

The report by the National Research Council's 25 member Committee on Air Quality Management took two years to complete. Chaired by William Chameides of the Georgia Institute of Technology, the panel recommends that the federal government closely examine the benefits of a multi-pollutant, market based approach to regulation of air pollution.

The panel structured its recommendations in five interrelated sections.

1. Strengthen scientific and technical capacity to assess risk and track progress

2. Expand national and multi-state performance control strategies and enhance authority to address air pollution

3. Enhance state and local effectiveness while retaining federal oversight and integrate with regional transportation planning

4. Develop an integrated program for dealing with hazardous air pollutants

5. Enhance protection of ecosystems

Market based approaches, such as emissions cap and trade programs which set limits on the overall amount of emissions from industry but allow individual companies to buy and sell pollution allowances, should be used "whenever practical and effective," the panel said. The Bush administration supports such emissions trading programs, and several emissions markets are already operating in the United States.

Smog as seen from space. This regional smog layer extending across central New York, western Lake Erie and Ohio was photographed by Space Shuttle astronauts on October 21, 2000. The view looks toward the southwest from southern Canada. (Photo courtesy NASA)

Revised or new regulations should consider how air pollution travels from state to state and across international borders, the panel said.

The report recommends improved tracking of emissions to more accurately assess what populations are at the highest risk of health problems from air pollution and to better measure the progress of pollution control strategies.

The current approach under the Clean Air Act does not do enough to protect communities that suffer most from air pollution, the committee said, nor does it adequately consider the impact on ecosystems or the role of air pollutants in climate change.

The report finds that the EPA's secondary standards, which aim to protect the environment, do not appear to be sufficient for protecting certain sensitive crops and ecosystems.

Passed in 1970 and amended in 1990, the Clean Air Act targets six major pollutants - carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, ozone, particulate matter, and lead - as well as some other hazardous pollutants known as air toxics.

It is supposed to improve visibility in wilderness areas and national parks, prevent acid rain, and curb the use of chemicals that deplete the ozone layer.

William Chameides chaired the Committee on Air Quality Management. He is Regents' Professor and holds the Smithgall Chair in Atmospheric Sciences in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. (Photo courtesy GIT)

In addition, states in the Eastern United States have experienced a decline in the amount of sulfate deposited by acid rain.

But the report details the many areas that are not in compliance with standards for ozone and particulate matter, and calls on the federal government to do more to cut emissions from older power plants, diesel trucks and nonroad diesel engines.

Congress, anticipating the next reauthorization of the Clean Air Act and its amendments, directed the EPA to arrange for a study by the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate the legislation from a scientific and technical perspective and to develop recommendations to strengthen the system.

In response to the report, the EPA applauded the panel's support of cap and trade programs and noted that the committee "points out that much of the system is good and warrants retaining."

The Bush administration's air pollution plan, known as "Clear Skies," generally fits the bill of the multipollutant, market based approach recommended by the report. The market based cap and trade system designed to reduce power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury by 70 percent.

Rush hour in Denver, Colorado fouls the air with smog. (Photo by Warren Gretz courtesy NREL)

Frank O'Donnell of the Clean Air Trust said the report provides a blueprint but does not deal with some of the "political realities of the situation."

He notes that the panel's report calls on the EPA to maintain current programs to reduce pollution in the United States so that the progress toward cleaner air continues, and to shift the regulatory structure of the air program gradually.

The report recommends that the EPA form a task force to prepare a plan of action for implementing the report's five integrated recommendations and determining what legislative action is required to do so.

The panel said that implementing its recommendations would require additional financial resources that would be "significant but not overwhelming."

Even a doubling of the approximately $200 million the EPA spends each year on air quality monitoring and research to fund the recommendations would be less than one percent of the annual expenditures nationwide for complying with the Clean Air Act, the panel said.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, an industry coalition, said the report should provide more evidence that the Clean Air Act needs to be reformed.

"Given that is has been 14 years since Congress last revisited the statute, we hope that cost-effective reforms will soon be considered," Segal said.

Read the full report online at: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309089328/html/