Designed to Fail: The State Writes Clean Air Plans It Knows Won’t Work

When does a government environmental agency forfeit its claim on being worthy of the title?

When it’s unresponsive to citizen complaints?

When it writes rules that blatantly favor polluters at the expense of citizens?

How about when it begins writing required federal air clean air plans that it knows will never actually result in cleaner air?

That’s what happened this year in DFW, when both our “non-attainment” areas – for smog and now lead contamination  – were the subject of what the Clean Air Act calls “State Implementation Plans.” These plans are assigned to the state agencies to write, but must be submitted to EPA for approval.

In DFW, our chronic smog problem over the last 20-30 years has required many of these plans from what is now called the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the last of which was 2006-2007. That was aimed at trying to get us down below the obsolete 1997 federal standard of 85 ppb of ozone or smog. It had rules for reducing cement kiln pollution for the first time, along with several other initiatives  Although ozone levels came down, we didn’t get below 85 ppb. Under federal law, an area has to keep submitting plans until you reduce pollution enough to meet the standard you’re aiming for.

So a new plan was required by the EPA. One that’s designed to meet the 85 ppb standard by the end of the 2012 smog season – NEXT YEAR. That’s the one recently proposed by the TCEQ after the last public hearing in early mid-July. Final comments were due on August 8th. But this plan is unlike any other in history because it does nothing but sit back and watch people buy new cars.

That’s right. The state’s entire plan for getting us down to a level of smog that’s now considered “unprotective of human health” by the George W. Bush EPA is letting the market do its thing and allow folks to replace their older, more polluting cars with newer, less polluting ones. Should that new car buying not proceed at the pace the TCEQ computer modeling requires, DFW will have failed twice in the last six years to reach a 14-year-old standard for air quality.

But there’s overwhelming circumstantial evidence that TCEQ never really intended DFW to meet that goal. Indeed, from the evidence it appears that wasn’t the primary goal of this smog plan at all. It’s real goal was not to impose any new rules and regulations that industry might find bothersome while waiting for the Obama Administration to announce a new ozone standard that would necessitate a new, more elaborate air plan for DFW that could then be used to achieve both goals….eventually, and after Rick Perry was finished running for President.

Because the new DFW air plan was written by TCEQ not to achieve the 85 ppb standard, but to allow Perry to avoid making any potential business donors mad at him over new air quality controls mandated by a more aggressive plan. How do we know this? Because the “do-nothing” plan that TCEQ has yet to officially submit to EPA has been so effective at doing nothing about cleaner air that it’s already failed.

A running average is kept by EPA of DFW’s last three summer high ozone readings to determine whether we’re in compliance with the ozone standard or not. As of right now, that three year running average stands at 88ppb, thanks to the smoggiest summer in DFW since 2007. We have until only the end of next summer to bring that down to 84ppb or this proposed TCEQ plan officially fails. Our high ozone reading for next summer would have to be only 77 ppb to reach that goal. We’ve never gone below 85.

Even before they submit this plan, it’s already DOA and the state knows it. So does the EPA. In comments submitted on August 8th, EPA Region 6 Air Planning Chief Guy Donaldson concluded that:

“The State has noted that, based on a technical demonstration including modeling and other evidence that the Dallas Fort Worth areas will attain the 1997 ozone standard by the end of the 2012 ozone season. Based on the current monitoring data and the limited reductions that will happen between now in 2012, however, it seems unlikely that the area will attain.”

This current failed plan is just a placeholder. The state is waiting for the EPA to announce a new federal ozone standard this summer that DFW will also not be able to meet and use that extended timeline for a SIP to kick the DFW smog can down the road. Meanwhile, DFW residents continue to pay for Governor Perry’s political ambitions with their health.

Everyone knows the TCEQ’s smog plan won’t work, but because the TCEQ can show, on paper, at least, that it’s computer modeling predicts that it will, this strange Kabuki theater of submitting a proposal that’s already failed is allowed to continue to its bitter end.

In Frisco however, the state did away with any pretense of appearances and didn’t even bother with a decent computer model, or much of anything else by the looks of the EPA comments on that clean air plan.

The land in and around the Exide lead-battery smelter is violating the lead air concentration standards of the Clean Air Act and caused the city to host the region’s second “non-attainment” area. Consequently, the state also had to draft a plan to clean up that mess. It didn’t do a very good job. In fact, it looks like it went out of its way to do a really bad one. On the same day he was telling TCEQ that ts DFW smog plan probably wouldn’t work, EPA’s Donaldson was also telling the Commission that since it had ignored routine guidance on how to perform modeling, the Frisco plan was “unapprovable.”

It’s not that EPA never rejects plans from state government. It does. It’s the reasons the EPA gave this time, on paper, for its rejection that make the Frisco case just a great example of your tax dollars at work. Despite the EPA specifically telling TCEQ what it needed to perform the analysis, the TCEQ refuses to do it. The frustration comes through despite the formalized style employed by EPA in writing such comments:

“The modeling analyses (Base Case and Future Case), in many cases, do not follow EPA regulations and guidelines for attainment demonstration SIP modeling. TCEQ did not follow the provisions of 40 CFR 5l.lI2 and 40 CFR Part 51 Appendix W, Guideline on Air Quality Models (GAQM). In particular, TCEQ did not conduct modeling in accordance with a modeling protocol agreed to between EPA and TCEQ. Despite EPA’s requests for a protocol prior to TCEQ conducting the modeling for the attainment demonstration SIP, no protocol was shared with EPA prior to TCEQ finalizing the modeling included in the proposal. EPA did have a number of conference calls with TCEQ and provided guidance on modeling for this proposal, but TCEQ did not follow many of EPA’s recommendations to meet the requirements of 40 CFR5I.II2 and 40 CFR Part 51 Appendix W, GAQM.”

The level of non-cooperation is so extensive, so fundamental that one can only conclude that the TCEQ intentionally sabotaged its own plan. Never disturb business if you can avoid it, even when its a lead smelter in the middle of America’s fastest growing city.

In effect, the Perry Administration has adopted the tactics of non-cooperation” that the Deep South state governments adopted during the 1950s and 60s to fight enforcement of federal civil rights laws and applied them to fighting the enforcement of federal environmental laws. Just like George Wallace and his ilk didn’t believe in the goals of integration, so Rick Perry and his TCEQ don’t believe smog and lead are bad for you. They reject the entire premise of the laws they are charged with enforcing. But instead of standing in the Exide corporate doorway keeping the EPA out, Perry and the TCEQ have just decided not to perform its responsibilities as the state’s environmental agency. They’re writing air plans that are designed to fail.

Leave a Comment





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.