Clean Air Act Issues in the 108th Congress Page: 13 of 19
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IB 10107
Deadlines for Achieving the Ozone and PM Air Quality Standards. A sixth
set of issues that have been discussed since the beginning of the 108th Congress concerns the
deadlines for achievement of the ozone air quality standard. Under the 1990 Clean Air Act
Amendments, ozone nonattainment areas were classified in one of five categories (Marginal,
Moderate, Serious, Severe, or Extreme) depending on the concentration of ozone recorded
by air quality monitoring equipment in the 3 years preceding passage of the 1990
amendments. Areas with higher concentrations of the pollutant were required to implement
more stringent controls on emissions; they were also given more time to reach attainment.
Failure to reach attainment by the specified deadline was to result in reclassification of an
area to the next highest category and the imposition of more stringent controls. Areas
classified as Serious, for example, were required to reach attainment by 1999. If they did not
do so, the law requires that they be reclassified as Severe, with a new deadline of 2005, and
more stringent emission controls, including the imposition of controls on smaller sources of
air pollution. (A more complete explanation of the categories, deadlines, and requirements
is contained in CRS Report RL30853, Clean Air Act: A Summary of the Act and Its Major
Requirements.)
For a variety of reasons, EPA has generally not reclassified areas when they failed to
reach attainment by the statutory deadlines. The Agency's website currently lists 21
Marginal areas, 9 Moderate areas, and 14 Serious areas, most of which should be categorized
as Severe had the Agency adhered to the statutory requirements. In some cases, the Agency
granted additional time to reach attainment on the grounds that a major cause of an area's
continued nonattainment was pollution generated outside the area and transported into it by
prevailing winds. The Agency has been sued over its failure to reclassify several areas. It
has lost all three of the suits that have gone to trial (Washington, D.C., St. Louis, and
Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas). As a result of these trials, the Agency has reclassified (or is
in the process of reclassifying) these areas, plus Baton Rouge and Atlanta; other areas (such
as Dallas-Fort Worth) that were not "bumped up" by the statutory deadline would appear to
be facing reclassification, also.
Section 1443 of the energy bill (H.R. 6) would roll back these reclassifications and
would extend attainment deadlines in areas affected by upwind pollution to the date on which
the last reductions in pollution necessary for attainment in the downwind area are required
to be achieved in the upwind area. This date is open to interpretation. Under EPA's
overturned policy, areas were given extensions no longer than the attainment or compliance
deadline in the upwind area (generally 2004, 2005, or 2007). The language of Section 1443
may give EPA flexibility to extend the deadlines beyond those dates, however; it also would
apply to the Agency's new 8-hour ozone standard scheduled to be implemented next year,
making many additional areas eligible for extensions.
Another deadline issue concerns the implementation of new standards for ozone and
fine particles that EPA promulgated in 1997. Due to legal challenges and other delays, the
new standards have not yet been implemented, but when they are implemented (now
expected in 2004), they are likely to double the number of areas in nonattainment. In
response to an initiative from the State of Texas, in 2002, EPA approved a protocol under
which areas can avoid designation as nonattainment for ozone until December 31, 2007, if
they voluntarily commit to enforceable early action compacts with their state and EPA. The
protocol sets out a number of milestones that areas must meet to qualify. Thirty-three areasCRS-10
01-09-04
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McCarthy, James E. Clean Air Act Issues in the 108th Congress, report, January 9, 2004; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc808878/m1/13/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.