Official calls for 'Tea Party' against EPA

Official calls
for 'Tea Party'
against EPA

By ANNE PAINE
Staff Writer

The Sundquist administration fired shots at the federal government yesterday, announcing it staunchly opposes a call for Tennessee to slash certain air pollution emissions by 35%.

The costly pollution controls needed to meet the goal would kill industrial development, said Justin Wilson, policy adviser to Gov. Don Sundquist.

The EPA has proposed that Tennessee and 21 other states greatly reduce smog-causing chemicals that waft across state lines.

The proposal could require TVA to cut release of nitrogen oxides, a component of smog, from its many coal-powered electricity plants by about 70% by the year 2005.

"Our air is the cleanest it has been in our lifetime," Wilson said. "We need a new Boston Tea Party."

He made the administration's stand at a meeting of the state Air Pollution Control Board in Knoxville, where he likened Tennessee to patriots who in 1773, disguised as Native Americans, dumped English tea into Boston Harbor to protest British taxes.

"Let's toss overboard the tainted cargo of bad data, political cover and capricious rule making," he said yesterday.

State environmentalists were staggered by Wilson's visit and message to the air board.

"I'm really disappointed that they want to fight EPA rather than looking at ways to reduce our emissions," said Alan Jones, executive director of the Tennessee Environmental Council.

The EPA says smog causes hundreds of thousands of cases of lung disease each year, hurting children, the infirm and the elderly most.

This is not the first conflict this Republican administration has had with the federal government.

The two bureaucracies butted heads in 1996 over another air issue — wording of a state-federal agreement intended to protect the Great Smoky Mountains from the smog that is choking it.

Tennessee argued that other states contribute to the problem, too, and should have the same agreement.

"We're saying we want other states to cut back emissions that hurt us, but we won't do anything to cut back emissions that hurt other states," Wilson said.

Tennessee is willing to do its part, he said, adding that EPA is simply asking too much and not using sound data.

Wilson charged that EPA, in a political move, is putting the burden on Tennessee rather than forcing New England to clean up its own emissions.

"Any effect on New England air quality from these reductions in Tennessee would be too small to be measured. The Northeast is the source of New England pollution, not Tennessee."

EPA officials said they stand behind their proposal and that states in New England and elsewhere were asked also to reduce emissions. This includes 32% in Massachusetts, 21% in Connecticut, 25% in Delaware, 32% in Pennsylvania and 25% in New Jersey.

"We didn't let Northeastern states off the hook," said Dave Ryan, a spokesman for the EPA in Washington.

"This is fully authorized by the Clean Air Act. In fact, we were criticized for taking so long in addressing this" issue of pollution moving across state lines.

The EPA undertook a two-year analysis, including a study of smog movement with representatives of 37 states, the recommendations that Tennessee, for one, signed off on are the basis of the EPA's proposal, federal officials say.

Wilson argued that the EPA rule is not in line with those recommendations and has demanded to see the data and calculations.

"Regulation without documentation is tyranny."

The state air pollution control board, after listening to presentations from Wilson and the Tennessee Valley Authority questioning the federal agency to make the data behind its reasoning public, passed a resolution urging the federal agency to make the information available.

The board also voted to request that the state's congressional delegation ask the EPA to deliver information about economic consequences of its proposal.

The Tennessee Valley Energy Reform Coalition, a TVA watchdog group, says it wants to see an analysis of the benefits from cleaner air, such as decreases in childhood asthma, less damage to agricultural crops and better visibility in Great Smoky Mountains, which could aid tourism.

"These standards will make our air cleaner and provide economic benefits to us all," said Phlen Smith with TVERC.

"The board needs to seek a balanced presentation on the impacts of the standards."