CONTENTS Miller, Jeffrey R., Deputy Administrator, National Highway Traffic Morgan, Richard D., Executive Director, Federal Highway Administra- Nikkila, Nick, vice president, State and Territorial Air Pollution Pro- Peach, J. Dexter, Assistant Comptroller General, General Accounting Stolzenberg, Doreen, senior attorney, Office of General Counsel, General Thomas, Hon. Lee M., Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency... Wybenga, Frits, Director, Bulk Cargo Section, Hazardous Materials Material submitted for the record by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Responses to subcommittee questions Appendix I.-Environmental Protection Agency: Tables of location and frequency of exceedances of ozone and carbon monoxide..... Appendix II.-Correspondence with the Environmental Protection EPA: OZONE AND THE CLEAN AIR ACT MONDAY, APRIL 27, 1987 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:10 a.m., in room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John D. Dingell (chairman) presiding. Mr. DINGELL. The subcommittee will come to order. More than a year ago, after receiving a helpful report by the General Accounting Office on the health effects of benzene and on a long-standing effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to control gasoline vapors at the pump or through changes in new vehicles, this subcommittee began an investigation, with GAO help, into Federal and State efforts to control ozone under the Clean Air Act. The National Ambient Air Quality Standard for ozone is 0.12 parts per million and it is measured in terms of exceedances with a limit of four exceedances of 1-hour duration over a 4 year period. This standard is health-based. It is under review as required by law and could, in the future, be tightened by EPA through rulemaking. Unfortunately, achieving attainment of today's ozone standard by the statutory deadline of December 31, 1987 has proven impossible in 76 areas of the Nation that have a total population of over 95 million people. Achieving a tighter standard according to two EPA Regional Administrators here today, will be even more difficult. A Georgia environmental official in March 11, 1987, in a communication to me says that devising a, quote, "Workable attainment strategy," will continue to be very difficult since ozone formation and methods of standard attainment are not yet well understood. He says the 1987 attainment deadline is, and I quote, "Unrealistic," saying that when it was established, and again I quote, "Neither Congress, EPA nor the States appreciated the difficulties that would be encountered in meeting it. Over the past 15 months the subcommittee has raised a number of questions about the adequacy of Federal and State efforts to achieve attainment of the standard. The investigation of this subcommittee has focused on those efforts. Early last year EPA announced two programs aimed at achieving attainment at some time after the 1987 deadline. The subcommittee questioned the legality of the programs. As a result, last November EPA's General Counsel, and this month, the General Ac counting Office both concluded that these programs had nearly insurmountable legal deficiencies. But EPA has not yet declared them dead. The subcommittee will want to know why the EPA continues to waste time and resources on programs that are open to serious question without having addressed either the question or the correction of the problems associated therewith. The subcommittee has shown that after nearly 5 years many State Implementation Plans known as (SIP's), and revisions thereof, still appear to be in limbo with neither approval nor disapproval by EPA. In region 5, which includes Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana, only one State implementation plan for ozone has been approved, that is Wisconsin's plan. Incredible as it may seem, region five told our staff only last week that approving or disapproving these SIP provisions, if it ever does happen, could take 12 months or more which would carry the Nation well past the December deadline, even though the law, and at least three Courts requires such action in 4 months. The Chair understands that EPA is trying to devise shorter schedules. But unless one believes in the tooth fairy, one cannot be optimistic given the procedural requirements of section 307 of the law. As to sanctions, they are a threat and a concern to the mayor of New York City and to many other elected and appointed office holders and citizens around the country. Today, the committee will want to examine how real the threat is, in the light of EPA's 1983 regulations governing their use. The subcommittee will also want to examine the use of models and monitoring. The General Accounting Office, in a recent report, was highly critical of the reliability of models. The Chair also has been critical at different times about the reliability of models and monitoring as they are now used, and as monitoring is now conducted. Whether approved in whole or in part, many SIP commitments have not yet been met. As a result, citizen suits have been started in New York and New Jersey. One commitment in several SIP's, including New Jersey's State Implementation Plan, requires controls on hydrocarbons from vessels. But in January 1986 Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole wrote a number of Governors, including the Governors of Texas, New Jersey, and California, that no safe controls exist, which means that a major possibility of explosion, fire or other dangers to vessels and crews and people are a real concern. According to Secretary Dole's January 7, 1987 letter to me, controls can increase the risk of fire and explosion in a port like New York. A significant threat to one of our major harbors. Such explosions undoubtedly will resolve the immediate hydrocarbon problem. But one must ask, at what expense to the port or to the people who work there. An 18-month study by the National Academy of Sciences is underway. It is clear, however, that this study will not help the Nation meet the 1987 deadline. The investigation of this subcommittee has also focused attention on a 13-year-old controversy over the control of gasoline vapors. In the early 1970's, EPA proposed rules for a national control effort at the gasoline pump which is called "Stage II". The 1987 amendments to the act required EPA to consider an alternative to installing controls on motor vehicles called "onboard controls." As a result, EPA properly abandoned nationwide Stage II control programs. But some States, in their discretion under the statute and under the Constitution, have chosen to utilize this or committed to it, including States like California, Missouri, New York, and New Jersey. In 1981, EPA formally abandoned the onboard idea. But it was resurrected in 1983-84. And last year it appeared that EPA was pushing Pell-Mell to adopt it until the subcommittee started asking questions about the relationship of volatility controls, the impact on safety, the possibility of explosion and dangers to motorists and passengers as well as the cost of these controls. As a result, volatility controls which EPA and the States agree can have an immediate environmental effect, have now caught up with the onboard idea, and EPA apparently plans to set such controls. But there are problems in this matter, which the committee will also want to examine. The safety issue with regard to onboard controls is far from resolved. Only last week the president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Mr. Brian O'Neill had this to say, and I quote: According to the U.S. Department of Transportation data, about 1,200 fatal motor vehicle crashes, plus about 16,000 nonfatal ones, already involve fire every year. More than 1,500 occupants sustain at least one burn each year. The last thing we need to do is to extend the risk by making passenger car fuel systems more complex and more prone to rupture. Despite repeated attempts to instruct EPA about the specific hazards of onboard vapor controls, the Agency appears to be taking a handsoff attitude. It has indicated that the safety issue will be resolved. And on another occasion, that onboard control systems are not safety hazards. As the Department of Transportation's data on crash fires and burn injuries indicate, safety problems involving fuel spillage and fire are larger than the environmental problem EPA is seeking to address. Solving one health problem by creating another one isn't rational or justifiable. Now, EPA has submitted to the Office of Management and Budget a formal rulemaking proposal on vapor recovery. The Agency has moved forward on this even though as recently as March 13, it told your subcommittee it was further investigating the potential safety issues for onboard systems. Submitting a proposed rule before resolving the very significant safety problems I've outlined in this letter, isn't responsible Government action. It's not humane, either, because it could mean that more people will be burned in passenger car crash fires. Obviously, a resolution of the internal conflict as to what the position of EPA is on this matter today will be useful. Witnesses from DOT are here today to talk about these safety issues. But I must ask that EPA and the State administrators tell us where in the Clean Air Act or in the use of good common sense, they think Congress or the public ever intended that air quality is superior in national importance to the safety of people and property. Do they not know that gasoline and gasoline vapors are enormously dangerous and highly explosive. Frankly, I find the attitude as suggested by the Institute, on the part of the Government, to be cavalier. We will discuss it today with extensive care. The gentleman from New York. |