Please accept this statement of the National Tribal Sincerely, William Yumper. William Youpee WY/kb STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL TRIBAL CHAIRMEN'S ASSOCIATION BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTION OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS ON S.252, A BILL TO AMEND THE CLEAN AIR ACT FEBRUARY 15, 1977 The National Tribal Chairmen's Association welcomes the opportunity to submit this statement for the hearing record. The quality of the air resources of all tribes establishes the character of our land base which in turn describes our various Indian cultures. Our natural resources and our ability to preserve them today remain an important part of what it means to be Indian. The National Tribal Chairmen's Association (NTCA) is an association of the elected or appointed chairmen, presidents, governors, or chiefs of the federally recognized Indian tribes of the United States and the Alaska Native regional corporations. Membership in NTCA includes the leaders of approximately 190 tribes from all parts of the country and most of the major reservations. The organization represents approximately 90 percent of the estimated 800,000 American Indians and Alaskan Natives. NTCA was formed in 1971 to represent the federally recognized tribes at the national level in working to secure the rights of Indian tribes and people. -2 As quasi-sovereign, independent people Indian tribes have rights within the federal system to make their own laws and to be governed by them. Tribal sovereignty must include the right to set air quality and emission standards for our reservations and to adopt policies of strict preservation of existing quality if that is the desire of the tribe. This aspect of sovereignty grows increasingly important as this country looks to tribal lands and to the western states for new energy sources and an intensification of economic development. There is potential in the destruction of the environment for the ruin of Indian cultures and economies. This is the fear we would ring to the attention of the Subcommittee, and it is one we believe can and should be addressed by each tribe exercising their own sovereign powers as equal partners with other governmental authorities. We do not seek expansion of existing legal or regulatory authority. The tribes, we believe, have the requisite jurisdiction. We simply urge that the Subcommittee consider carefully and preserve the distinct rights of Indian tribes in reporting its amendments to the Clean Air Act. In this context, the NTCA would like to express its strong support for the principles stated by the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana in their testimony before this Subcommittee on February 9, 1977. Mr. Chairman, it gives me great pleasure to be able to present the views of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation on the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977. For two years now, New York State has been awaiting the amendments to the Clean Air Act. They are essential if the country is to avoid chaos in dealing with the very important issues of clean air. They are essential so that one area of the country will not be favored over or disfavored by the application of clean air regulations. The major issues I would like to touch on today are prevention of significant deterioration, new sources in non-attainment areas, the vehicle pollution problem, maintenance of effort, and the requirement that federal facilities meet all state procedures for the control and abatement of air pollution. 1. Prevention of significant deterioration. It is our feeling that Congress, not the courts, must establish the national policy on this vitally important issue of the prevention of significant deterioration. Currently, some states are fully abiding with federal PSD requirements, while others may be ignoring them. These requirements may well be challenged again in the courts because there is no clear congressional mandate regarding prevention of significant deterioration. S-252 provides for two area classes for which source impact has been tabulated. The allowable increments are the same as those published by EPA for the Class 1 and 2 areas in their system. However, EPA has a Class 3 in their system, which allows incremental contamination up to the secondary standard. We agree with the EPA concept concerning a Class 3 as long as the state provides adequate protection to low-growth and slow-growth areas through judicious and proper application of all three area classifications. The total air contaminant loading through the three-level approach should not be any greater than would occur with a two-level approach, but an advantage of Class 3 is that it will provide for a modest growth adjacent to the more heavily industrialized areas, thus cutting down on auxiliary services, such as transportation, power, etc. Otherwise, with only a Class 1 and 2 concept, industry would be spread very broadly throughout the states, and we might well be defeating one of our purposes of prevention of significant deterioration, - 2 2. or at least one of the purposes of many state administrators that is, the reduction or prevention of sources which are aesthetically unattractive to the particular location. In addition, we ask Congress to consider that where a state has its own non-degradation system, it be allowed to use it in lieu of the federal system provided that the state approach gives results comparable to those of the federal system. A case in point is New York State, which currently has a four-level standard for particulates througout the state. In many areas which we have classified as Class I, there would be little new air contamination allowed, as is true with the federal Class 1 system. However, in areas which we classify as Class II, there are many instances where there could be no new air contamination allowed because those areas just barely meet our Class II standard. Thus, in those instances, our standard would be more restrictive. Before any state could adopt such a system in lieu of the federal system, it would be presented to the EPA Administrator for his concurrence and acceptance. Whether or not Congress permits an equivalent state plan for PSD, serious positive consideration must be given to the Class 3 area concept. Although New York State has very limited federal lands, we intend to classify both our Adirondack and Catskill park areas, constituting over 6,000,000 acres, as Class 1 in the federal system or the equivalent in our system. Both of these areas are classified forever wild in the state constitution, and state lands themselves are developable only by a constitutional change, whereas private lands are developable only through approval of the Adirondack Park Agency, which has developed a master plan for the Adirondack area, and such a plan is also being developed for the Catskill area. Non-attainment areas. Although many limited areas of the country are considered by EPA as non-attainment areas for particulates and sulfur dioxide, vast regions of the country are non-attainment areas for photochemical oxidants and ozone. Because of the nature of the photochemical oxidant problem, I will address it separately from particulates and sulfur dioxide. Current federal law seems to prohibit the building of new sources in nonattainment areas. This means that a literal interpretation of the law would preclude any growth of any size or kind in a non-attainment area for any pollutant for which the standard is not met. A virtual no-growth policy is intolerable for most of the country. EPA addressed the issue with their "emissions trade-off" policy, but this, too, may not be acceptable. First, EPA has set an arbitrary cut-off point below which a source is not considered to have an impact on the area. In this concept, they are correct, so if the source is small enough and its pollutants disperse adequately, the impact of a single source is, in fact, immeasurable. However, the impact of multiple sources may well be measurable, and often these multiple sources may be smalier than the cut-off established by EPA as a significant emissions level. We in New York State feel that some provision must be made to allow expansion of industry, where appropriate, in non-attainment areas and thus we are preparing a new state regulation which defines significance of impact on air quality rather than significance of emissions. Anything above an |