STATEMENT on CLEAN AIR ACT AMENDMENTS for submission to the SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION SENATE PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE for the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES by Gary D. Knight* The National Chamber is pleased to have this opportunity to express its views regarding S. 251, S. 252, S. 253, and S. 714, which would amend the Clean Air Act of 1970. The National Chamber is the world's largest business federation with some 65,000 members who employ millions of American men and women. The Clean Air Act of 1970 was a necessary and overdue law. The National Chamber, and a majority of our members, worked for the Act, and we still believe in its goals. The Clean Air Act is an important vehicle to improve the "quality of life" for all Americans. However, "quality of life" for all Americans consists of far more than the quality of the air in which we live and work. To improve our standard of living, economic growth must be maintained to create more and better jobs. The Clean Air Act, therefore, must be implemented in relationship to many other national goals. To assure this, the Act should be adjusted so that it can help the Nation attain the following balanced goals: the achievement of reasonable ambient air quality standards for the protection of public health and welfare, the continuation of reasonable and needed economic growth, the availability and wise use of domestic energy supplies, the minimization of unemployment, and the revitalization of our urban areas. In short, our efforts to achieve clean air should be sought in a manner which, in practice, not just in words, provides for the balancing of all of our society's basic needs. *Gary D. Knight, Associate Director for Environment 84-239 O - 77-30 2 It is in this spirit that we express our thoughts on needed changes in the Clean Air Act. The health of our citizens, the strength of our economy and the well-being of our society are all too important for us to resist constructive change in a law which, one way or another, affects the daily lives of all Americans, as few other laws do. We Our recommendations have been arrived by way of a thorough process in which we sought to evaluate how the Act has worked. have gathered data from the business community, as well as from government. We have reached our conclusions as an organization subscribing to the basic objective of the Clean Air Act and desirous of supporting reasonable, well-balanced means to achieve those objectives. In that spirit, we offer for your careful consideration the following recommendations: 1. There should be mandatory, periodic reviews of the health and scientific data base upon which national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) are established. National Commission on Air Quality should be created for that purpose. 2. There should be a three-year extension of the deadline for achieving the NAAQS. 3. The automobile emission standards should be extended for at least two years with the final requirements of the 1970 Act, (which would reduce the level to 90%. below the 1970 level) phased in over a reasonable period thereafter. S. 714 would accomplish this and should be approved immediately. 4. There should be flexibility in Section 110 of the Act, which establishes the requirements for state plans to enforce the law, to permit the expansion of existing facilities and construction of new plants in areas which, for one reason or another, have not yet attained the NAAQS. 5. A two-year study should be made by the aforementioned National Commission on Air Quality of the present "significant deterioration" regulations to determine their impact on our economy and on employment. 6. Authorization should be given the Enviromental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement indirect source and transportation controls only as a "tool of last resort" to achieve the NAAQS. 7. There should be a three-year, case-by-case extension of the deadline for factories and other stationary sources to achieve their required smokestack standards and "delayed compliance penalties" should be eliminated from the proposed bills. 8. The following recommendations are offered to improve the administration of the Act and make it fairer to all concerned: a. Formal procedures under 5 USC 553 should be required of EPA in promulgating rules, regulations, or standards. b. A challenge to the validity of a regulation should be permitted at any time, and the limited 30-day appeal period in defense of an enforcement proceeding should be eliminated. c. More stringent requirements should not be required of small businessmen until they have amortized equipment initially required to comply with the Act. d. Intermittent and alternative control strategies should be authorized where the NAAQS are being met or where such alternative control strategies are necessary to maintain the economic viability of a plant. e. Court costs should not be awarded automatically to parties prevailing in litigation pursuant to the Act. The following is provided in support of the above recommendations: 1. STUDY OF THE DATA BASE BY A NATIONAL COMMISSION ON AIR QUALITY It has been over six years since the initial passage of the Clean Air Act. The Act required LP. to implement national ambient air quality standards for six pollutants within 90 days of the Act's effective date. EPA, in its haste to meet the deadline, utilized the best data available at that time to set these standards. Two categories of standards were set: a primary standard to protect public health and a secondary standard to protect public welfare (crops, livestock, wildlife, property values, etc). *Ambient standards set "safe" levels for the surrounding air. Ambient In recent years, there has been great controversy in the scientific community regarding the validity of these standards. One body of opinion believes that there is no "threshhold" level below which susceptible groups such as severe asthmatics, will not suffer some illness or discomfort. Another, ever-growing body believes that the NAAQS, which Congress intended to be set at a level which included an "adequate margin of safety", are much too strict. Consider an example. The major study upor n EPA based the sulfur dioxide (produced in the combust of fossil fuels) ambient standard, was one made in England. The English study showed that concentrations of SO2 would cause harmful effects if a certain level was exceeded for three days in a row. EPA took this English standard, doubled its permissible level and pronounced that if any area of the country exceeded that ambient standard twice in one year, at any one reading, then a health hazard exists. This is clearly much more than the adequate "margin of safety" interded by the Act. The scientific basis of EPA's supplemental studies also raises questions. As the Bureau of Standards has reported, scientific tests of this type bring results where the margin of error can be half again as much as the "safe" concentration level deduced from the test. The Bureau has recommended a standardized technique for tests made to develop data for standards.* However, EPA did not use this method, because the time schedule required in the Act did not permit it. Errors may also occur if data regarding the effects of pollution on test animals are applied directly to humans. Dr. Mary 0. Amdur of the Harvard School of Public Health, who is currently conducting numerous studies in this field, reports, "Data from experimental toxicilogy cannot be directly extrapolated to the urban air pollution situation". *The standardized technique reduces percentages of error by requiring a number of analysts and repeated testing. The estimate of error in EPA conclusions could be at least 50% because EPA limited its studies to one analyst and did not sufficiently repeat the tests. |