State implementation plan (SIP)
Houston's Clean Air Plan: the SIP
The Clean Air Act is a federal law covering the entire country, but most of the work to carry out the Clean Air Act is done by states, including Texas. Congress decided that states should take the lead in carrying out the Clean Air Act because solving air pollution problems often requires special understanding of local industries, geography, housing patterns and weather. A good explanation of how the Clean Air Act should work is provided in the EPA's Plain English Guide to the Clean Air Act.
Houston misses 2007 ozone deadline
On Monday, June 4, the air quality monitor at Wallisville Road in Baytown exceeded the 1-hour ozone standard for the second day this year. As a result, the Houston region lost its last hope of meeting the 2007 deadline for attaining the 1-hour standard – or rather, of getting an extension of it.
According to federal guidelines, a region can meet the standard if it has no more than three exceedances in three years at any one monitor. For the period of 2005-2007, Houston blew that chance in the first year. However, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took the position that Houston would be eligible for an extension if no monitor in the region exceeded the standard more than once during 2007.
GHASP comments on HGB 8-hour SIP, filed Feb. 12, 2007
Local residents care about their air
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) held two public meetings yesterday to hear feedback about its plan to achieve the federal 8-hour standard for ozone in the Houston region. Both meetings were well attended, with local residents expressing their concerns about how the continued delays will affect health.
Representatives from GHASP and Mothers for Clean Air were in attendance and delivered comments. We will also submit thorough written comments. Channel 2 aired a segment that featured MfCA Executive Director Jane Laping.
GHASP remarks on 8-hour SIP
The following remarks were made by GHASP Executive Director Sabrina Strawn on Jan 29, 2007 at a TCEQ public hearing.
Good afternoon, I am Sabrina Strawn, here to add my voice to the chorus of dismay. We have watched deadline after deadline slip by. This year marks the deadline for the one-hour standard, now in limbo. When, three years ago, TCEQ adopted its last ozone reduction plan for Houston, the changeover to the eight-hour standard had begun. TCEQ then made numerous promises for improvements, in modeling, for example, that have not been honored.
Texas asks for another extension of ozone deadline
Houston's first deadline to meet federal health standards for ozone was 1975. Now, 32 years later, we still haven't reached that goal, and Governor Perry is asking the EPA to extend our deadline (yet again) to 2018, according to a Houston Chronicle article by Dina Cappiello.
Texas officially asked the federal government Friday for an extra nine years to meet health standards for ground-level ozone, saying that it would be "practicably impossible" for the eight-county Houston-Galveston region to comply with the law by 2010.
GHASP comments on 8-hour ozone SIP
The following comments were submitted by GHASP Research Director Meg Healy to the TCEQ on May 23, 2007, regarding the adoption of the 8-hour ozone SIP.
All agree that additional emission reductions are necessary for attainment of the 8-hour standard in the Houston area. So on December 13, of last year, during the discussion of the proposed SIP, Commissioner Soward raised the question of whether the Commission would be able to add control measures to the plan in response to comments on the proposal. If the process does not allow the Commission to beef up the plan before it is submitted to the EPA, he was concerned that the SIP would be dead on arrival. Plus, the Commission and all the stakeholders will have wasted another five months or more waiting to implement the controls necessary to attain the standard.
Local officials send message: Reconsider clean air plan
In January, the Transportation Policy Council for our region, a group led by Judge Eckels with numerous other local elected officials as members, sent a letter of concern and recommendations to TCEQ.Â
After noting that progress the area has made in improving air quality, the letter continues:
We are concerned ... that the proposed state implementation plan (SIP) revision creates potentially serious problems for the area. The proposed SIP falls far short of attainment, but does not include a clear strategy or timetable for developing a future attainment plan. It does not recommend that the area be reclassified to a later attainment date. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has indicated that it is unlikely to approve or find this SIP complete without additional modeling suggesting when attainment can be reached and a request that the area be reclassified.
TCEQ's ozone proposal: Do the math
Yesterday, January 28, 2007, the Houston Chronicle ran an article about the state's projections for when the Houston region will meet federal ozone standards. Though the deadline for meeting the 8-hour standard is 2010, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has said that the Houston region may not achieve it until as late as 2018.
Though 18 of 22 monitors in the Houston area are expected to reach the standard in time, even leveling the Ship Channel would not get Bayland Park, Deer Park and Aldine there by the 2009 ozone season, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. It takes only one monitor above the standard for the entire region to be out of compliance.
Appellate court rejects EPA attempts to weaken ozone standards
On the Friday just before Christmas, a federal appeals court rejected attempts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)Â to weaken requirements for attainment of federal ozone standards. http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200612/04-1200a.pdfÂ
The court deferred to the EPA's expertise in determining that a new 8-hour standard is more protective of public health than the old 1-hour standard, and allowed the agency to revoke the 1-hour standard. However, the court also determined that the agency could not weaken Congressional mandates for steady, sustained progress toward attainment of federal air quality standards. Specifically, the court ruled that the agency cannot weaken or eliminate:
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