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3 Legal and Institutional Context
Pages 57-80

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From page 57...
... The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 are intended to lead to an augmented program of visibility protection; this chapter describes various approaches such a program could take. Using this chapter in conjunction with Chapter 5, decision makers will be able to judge the compatibility of these techniques with one or more approaches.
From page 58...
... The PSD program requires that each applicant for a new or modified major emitting facility seeking to locate in a clean-air area (an area in which the NAAQS are met for one or more air pollutants) show that the facility will use the best available control technology (BACT)
From page 59...
... Some parklands receive special protection: Large national parks and wilderness areas in existence when the PSD program was codified in 1977 are designated by Section 162(a) as mandatory Class ~ areas that may not be reclassified.
From page 60...
... The second program concerned with park visibility is established by Section 169A, which declares a national goal of preventing and remedying visibility impairment in mandatory Class ~ areas caused by manmade air pollution. Section 169A(a)
From page 61...
... requires EPA, within I~ months after receiving a transport commission's report, to carry out its regulatory responsibilities under Section 169A, including the issuance of criteria for measuring reasonable progress toward We national goal of ending anthropogenic visibility impairment in mandatory Class ~ areas. It is not clear whether EPA may act before receiving the report.
From page 62...
... In addition, the federal land management agencies have supported research on visibility issues pursuant to their own statutory missions. Basic Principles The complex Clean Air Act provisions summarized above have several common themes.
From page 63...
... The primary means of control under He PSD program BACT and increments therefore apply regardless of whether a particular source can be shown to endanger health or welfare. A showing of risk is necessary only when a land manager wishes to prevent the issuance of a permit to a source that complies with BACT and the increments.
From page 64...
... The most familiar example of this principle is the SIP process, in which a source located in a high-pollution area may be treated differently from an identical source located in a low-pollution area. Similarly, the BART requirement of Section 169A differentiates among sources based on their contribution to visibility degradation in a mandatory Class ~ area; it does so by requiring that the BART determination incorporate consideration of "the degree of improvement in visibility which may reasonably be anticipated to result from the use of ithe proposed]
From page 65...
... Implementation of the Visibility Protection Programs As the foregoing discussion shows, the Clean Air Act offers several tools for protecting visibility in national parks and wilderness areas. For instance, EPA could proceed by establishing national secondary airquality standards at levels sufficient to protect visibility.
From page 66...
... The PSD program has had a greater effect. The program has benef~tted visibility by reducing growth in atmospheric loadings of air pollutants that contribute to regional haze.
From page 67...
... One reason is that the increments do not distinguish between particles in We 0.~-~.0 Am range which have the greatest potential to degrade visibility and larger particles. In addition, We increments, like the ambient standards, focus on the concentration of pollution at a given time and place; but visibility impairment depends on the total magnitude of fine particulate matter between an object and an observer (Sloane and White, 1986~.
From page 68...
... The rules also require the 36 states containing listed Class T areas to revise their SIPs to include · A long-term strategy to make reasonable progress towards the national visibility goal of eliminating present and preventing fixture anthropogenic visibility impairment in mandatory Class I areas. The strategy must include steps to protect any "integral vista" a view looking out from the listed mandatory Class ~ area that is important to an observer's visual experience of the area identified by the federal land manager for the area.
From page 69...
... · Development of state visibility-monitoring programs to assess impairment, strategy effectiveness, and trends. · State and federal land manager coordination regarding visibility programs and PSD program permit review activities.
From page 70...
... The task force recommended that research funding be enhanced and that visibility effects be taken into account in designing regulatory programs for other purposes; however, it did not propose immediate steps to control regional haze (EPA, 198Sa)
From page 72...
... The resulting costs, such as lapses in data collection, have been high (see Chapter 4~. Moreover, by focusing its monitoring in national parks, NPS implicitly has minimized the broader regional character of visibility impairment.
From page 73...
... · Active coordination with the federal land managers through the Oregon Visibility Advisory Committee. That committee provides recommendations to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality on a wide range of issues, including the determination of impairment conditions, the adequacy of control strategies, and the scope of the protection program.
From page 74...
... Vermont's visibility program attempted to control regional haze caused by sources in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. The state adopted a 2 ~g/m3, 24-hour air-quality standard for sulfates to protect visibility within the Lye Brook Wilderness.
From page 75...
... For instance, EPA could seek to protect visibility through setting an ambient standard for particles smaller than 2.5 ~m. The Clean Air Act calls for the establishment of the desired environmental level could be expressed in other ways.
From page 76...
... Nondegradation Approach This approach focuses on preventing new environmental problems. A cap that limits emissions to a given level (e.g., 8.9 million tons of sulfur dioxide in Me Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990)
From page 77...
... Those approaches can take various forms, such as the following: · EPA and some states have been moderately successful in establishing programs to allow individual sources to find the least-expensive method to achieve required reductions in emissions ~iroff, 1986~. · In a fundamental departure from the traditional regulatory structure, the acid rain provisions of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments assign emission levels to large sulfur dioxide sources but permit trading of reduction credits between sources.
From page 78...
... The PSD program uses the technology-based approach in that large new sources in clean-air areas are required to install BACT to limit their emissions. The program also uses a modified version of the nondegradation approach by limiting, (but not forbidding)
From page 79...
... For this reason, the committee believes it appropriate to evaluate source apportionment methods for their consistency with all four approaches identif~ed above. SUMMARY The Clean Air Act establishes several mechanisms that could be used to reduce visibility impairment in national parks and wilderness areas, but the effectiveness of each has been limited.
From page 80...
... 80 PROTECTING VISIBILITY IN NATIONAL PARKS In addition, interest has increased in exploring possible ways to alter the current federal programs to provide more effective protection. Even under current law, these could fit into any of the four paradigms identified above.


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