Frist and EPA to discuss Smokies air pollution

Frist and EPA to discuss Smokies air pollution

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Bill Frist met with EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman Thursday to learn more about how a Bush administration initiative would affect air pollution in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Bush has asked Congress to impose mandatory limits on industry production of three kinds of pollutants and to let companies work out how to achieve them through a system of earning and trading credits. The pollutants are sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury. Congress has yet to consider the proposal.

After Thursday's meeting, Frist, R-Tenn., said the administration's so-called Clear Skies Initiative "shows promise, but we still need to closely examine the full impact of this proposal on the Smokies."

About 10 million people a year visit the park, on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, making it the most popular national park.

Environmentalists agree that more information is needed on the proposal.

"We have been concerned that the detail associated with Clear Skies is lacking," said Stephen Smith, executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "Clear Skies is really just a framework and the details are just not there."

"It is clear that people would like more details, and we will be providing those soon," said Jeff Holmstead, assistant administrator for air and radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency.

However, Holmstead said the agency had given a lot of information about the proposal to lawmakers in hopes of putting the initiative in legislative form. "We are working very closely with both members of the Senate and the House in crafting legislative language," Holmstead said.

Smith said environmentalists had urged Frist, a former heart-lung surgeon, to take up the issue because air pollution can cause health problems.

"We were pleased to see that he has engaged in the issue and is asking the questions," Smith said.

Whitman told Frist that she would visit the Smokies to check out the air pollution problem firsthand. No date for her visit has been set.

Smith said a 75 percent reduction in the allowable emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal-fired plants is needed to improve the air quality in the national park.

Holmstead said the Bush proposal would cut sulfur dioxide emissions by 73 percent below current levels by 2018.

Air pollution threatens more than 30 plant species in the park, a factor in its inclusion on the latest list of ten most endangered parks compiled by the National Parks Conservation Association. High ozone levels were recorded on 32 days in 2000 and 13 days through September of last year.