EPA Moves to Ease Air Rules for Parks

The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's 10 regional administrators formally dissented from the decision and four others criticized the move in writing.

Documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the administration's push to weaken Clean Air Act protections for "Class 1 areas" nationwide has sparked fierce resistance from senior agency officials. All but two of the regional administrators objecting to the proposed rule are political appointees.

The proposal would change the practice of measuring pollution levels near national parks, which is currently done over three-hour and 24-hour increments to capture emission spikes during periods of peak energy demand; instead, the levels would be averaged over a year. Under this system, spikes in pollution would no longer violate the law.

In written submissions, EPA regional administrators have argued that this switch would undermine critical air-quality protections for parks such as Virginia's Shenandoah, which is frequently plagued by smog and poor visibility.

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"The approach that's being proposed is going to underestimate the emissions, both for power plants that are out there now and for the ones that are proposed," Shepherd said. "It's going in the wrong direction for our efforts to try to improve air quality in the parks."

While limiting pollution in national parks does not have the broad public health implications of federal air-quality rules that govern soot or airborne lead pollution, it has symbolic and ecological importance. The four major pollutants affecting the parks - sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide and mercury - contribute to degrading once-pristine habitats that Congress sought to preserve for generations when it decided to protect those areas.

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"The headquarters perspective tends to be much broader," Holmstead said, adding that the Bush administration has pursued air pollution reductions but has seen its proposals tied up in court. "Air quality in national parks, in particular, has very little to do with an individual source. What you really want to do is lower air pollution in that region."

Regional EPA officials, he added, want "every weapon in their arsenal" to reduce pollution from a given source: "Regions are focused on a permit for a specific plant. Often what they focus on is anything that gives them leverage."

But Mark Wenzler, who directs clean-air programs for the National Parks Conservation Association, said regional administrators "weren't just looking at parochial concerns," but instead conducting a broad analysis of the rule's impact.

"The administration's staunch commitment to coal is so deep that they're willing to sacrifice our national parks on the way out the door," he said.

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