EPA says US air quality better, but smog still a problem
Date: 19-Oct-01
Country: USA
Author: Chris Baltimore
Over 160 million tons of pollutants are released into the air each year, and 121 million people live where air quality is unhealthy, EPA said in its report on national air quality based on data collected in 2000.
Current EPA reduction efforts focus on ground-level ozone and fine particle matter, both major components in smog and haze that obscure views and increase health problems in major cities like Atlanta, Houston, New York and Los Angeles.
The agency pointed to significant reductions in four major pollutants in the 1991-2000 period, after the Clean Air Act went into effect. Lead levels decreased 50 percent, carbon monoxide down 41 percent, sulfur dioxide down 37 percent, and nitrogen dioxide fell 11 percent, EPA said.
EPA boasted that the reductions came despite a 158 percent increase in gross national product and a 143 percent increase in vehicle travel mileage since the agency was formed in 1970.
EPA pledged to work with Congress on legislation to "further reduce air pollution from power plants while providing that industry the flexibility it needs," EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said in a release.
Emission-trading regimes have reduced the effects of sulfur dioxide released by coal-fired power plants, EPA said. But sulfur dioxide is still the dominant source of pollution in the eastern U.S., it said.
Measurements show that visibility on the best days in the eastern U.S. are comparable to the worst days in the West, and that ozone levels in the south and north have increased over the last 10 years.
Earlier this week, Whitman said the EPA would likely issue its position before the end of the year on proposed stricter requirements for utilities' air emissions.
"I would hope it is done by then," Whitman said.
Democratic lawmakers want to require U.S. utilities to begin making steep cuts in 2002 emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide.
Sen. Jim Jeffords, the Vermont independent who heads the Senate Environmental Committee, has proposed a bill that would cut all four pollutants.
The Bush administration has opposed limits on carbon dioxide emissions, which have been linked to global warming. Bush and Republican committee members George Voinovich of Ohio and Robert Smith of New Hampshire have said curbing carbon dioxide would cost utilities billions of dollars.
"The president has said he is not interested in a mandatory cap on carbons so I don't see (the administration supporting Jeffords' bill)," she said.