Smog Cleanup Stalled in Many U.S. Cities

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, October 4, 2004 (ENS) - An internal report from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) casts doubt on the repeated claim by the Bush administration that the nation's air quality is improving.

Ground level ozone has not declined in most of the nation's seriously polluted areas during the past decade and is even increasing in some areas, according the report by the EPA Office of Inspector General.

The few areas that have improved appear to have benefited more from recent weather patterns than from emission reductions.

The report from the independent office comes as EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt continues to tout improving air quality.

Last month Leavitt said the nation's air is "the cleanest most Americans have ever breathed."

But the report, released Thursday, finds that many of the most polluted metropolitan areas are still struggling to attain EPA's 1-hour ozone standard established 25 years ago.

Houston-Galveston metropolitan area from the Galveston Ship Channel (Photo courtesy GHASP)

More than 159 million Americans live in counties that do not comply with the 8-hour standard.

Ground level ozone - the primary component in smog - is the most pervasive urban air pollutant and has been linked with heart disease, asthma and other respiratory ailments.

It also damages sensitive ecosystems and is responsible for more than $1 billion in agricultural crop losses in the United States each year.

In a bid to expedite smog reductions, Congress passed the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, ordering the EPA and state governments to reduce the emissions that cause ozone in order to bring areas into attainment.

Ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds - emitted from vehicles, power plants and factories - mix with sunlight and heat.

The law mandated the EPA and states to develop and implement adequate emission control plans for reducing these ozone precursor emissions by three percent annually by the dates mandated.

But the EPA and state governments have struggled to develop and implement emission control plans.

States may have used "inaccurate data, assumptions, and projections of emission growth, resulting in fewer reductions planned than appropriate," according to the report.

The EPA's oversight has been limited and has contributed the difficulties states have encountered in reducing emissions by the required three percent each year.

Only five of 25 nonattainment areas designated serious to extreme "have experienced substantial downward trends in ozone levels."

Rush hour in the District of Columbia. Tailpipe emission technologies have reduced smog forming emissions from automobiles since 1970, but increases in drivers and miles driven have largely offset these benefits. (Photo courtesy Capital Beltway Study)

The report faults a 1997 EPA policy that allowed nonattainment areas to claim emission reductions from selected sources outside of the particular nonattainment area.

This allows for "for potential double-counting and does not ensure that reductions do more than just offset growth," the Office of Inspector General states.

The EPA has still not issued rules - mandated by the law - requiring states to show progress in reducing emissions, nor guidance on how they should demonstrate this progress.

"Consequently, there is no approved, consistent, or reliable method to measure the success of ozone precursor emission reduction efforts," the report says.

In a written response to the report, Bush administration officials agreed with some of the recommendations but said funding and staffing shortfalls are formidable constraints on implementation.

"Resources to support these programs has remained stagnant for years," Assistant Administrator Jeffrey Holmstead wrote. "We must prioritize our efforts, putting our resources where we think we can get the most good for dollar spent."

Holmstead said the administration is focusing EPA's efforts on implementing the new 8-hour standard rather than the less stringent 1-hour standard.

"Rather than spending resources looking back, we have chosen to focus on moving forward and developing programs and guidance that will assist states in getting the reductions necessary to meet the new standard," according to Holmstead.

The Inspector General's Office said the EPA "needs to learn from the past."

"If many nonattainment areas could not meet the 1-hour standard, attainment of the 8-hour standard will be even more complex and difficult for these areas," the report said.