{"id":1464,"date":"2009-11-19T13:07:27","date_gmt":"2009-11-19T21:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2022-08-05T12:21:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T19:21:26","slug":"epa-moves-to-relax-clean-air-rules-near-national-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/2009\/11\/19\/epa-moves-to-relax-clean-air-rules-near-national-parks\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA moves to relax clean air rules near national parks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source of this article &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2008\/nov\/19\/nation\/na-parks19\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2008<\/a><\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON &#8211; The Environmental Protection Agency is completing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, despite the fact that half of the <span class=\"caps\">EPA<\/span>\u2019s 10 regional administrators have formally dissented from the decision and another four have criticized the move in\u00a0writing.<\/p>\n<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p>Documents obtained by the Washington Post show that the Bush administration\u2019s push to weaken Clean Air Act protections for \u201cClass 1 areas\u201d nationwide has sparked fierce resistance from senior agency\u00a0officials.<\/p>\n<p>All but two of the regional administrators objecting to the proposed rule are political\u00a0appointees.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal would change the practice of measuring pollution levels near national parks, which is currently done over three-hour and 24-hour increments in order to capture emission spikes during peak energy demand. Instead, levels would be averaged over a year; increases in pollution would no longer violate the\u00a0law.<\/p>\n<p>EPA Region 4 Administrator <span class=\"caps\">J.I.<\/span> Palmer Jr., whose office oversees Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, wrote that the new formula \u201cwould reduce consistency, accuracy and public review\u201d and \u201ccould allow greater deterioration of air quality in clean areas rather than preventing significant\u00a0deterioration.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bharat Mathur, who oversees air quality for the Great Lakes states as acting administrator for Region 5, wrote, \u201cThe proposed approach is inappropriate and could lead to gaming the increment calculation.\u201d And Region 8 acting administrator Carol Rushin, whose office covers Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, wrote that the rule provided \u201cinappropriate discretion\u201d when calculating pollution\u00a0levels.<\/p>\n<p>EPA spokesman Jonathan Shradar said in an e-mail that he could not comment in detail on the air quality rule but said the submissions were \u201call part of the regular agency process, so all I can say is that that process has been moving\u00a0forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many national parks struggle with poor visibility shrouding otherwise spectacular vistas, as well as acid rain and other problems caused by air pollution, which has intensified the debate over how best to regulate lead smelters, coal-fired power plants and other nearby pollution sources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source of this article &#8211; Los Angeles Times, November 19, 2008 WASHINGTON &#8211; The Environmental Protection Agency is completing new air quality rules that will make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, despite the fact that half [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,32,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-nps","category-pollution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3773,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions\/3773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}