Massachusetts News 
By Eric Darbe 

July2--The recent heat wave led the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue a press release to all of New England warning of poor air quality.  In the release John P. Divillars, EPA’s New England Administrator, said “residents should restrain from strenuous outdoor activity.”  Some question the EPA’s claims on the severity of the air quality problem, as well as the EPA’s contention that “cars, trucks and buses give off the majority of the pollutant that makes smog.” 

Ben Lieberman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Massachusetts News, that “since EPA has greatly tightened the standards they are raising alarms over excedences of very strict standard, so we are really not talking about all that serious of a problem.” The air is a lot cleaner that is was 20 years ago, said Lieberman. There are some spot problems here and there, but the EPA tends to exaggerate the problem, he said. 

Craig Rucker, Executive Director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, told Massachusetts News a lot of low level ozone is caused by completely natural forces.  For instance, the Smoky and Blue Ridge mountains gain their distinguishing characteristics form the formation of low level ozone.   Rucker continued that, “Ronald Reagan said once that trees cause pollution and he was laughed at, and ridiculed, but studies have now shown that he was correct.” 

Rucker agrees that the air is cleaner, and says that the EPA may deserve some of the credit for that--particularly in the later half of century--although "our air has predominantly been cleaned up from technology."  But now, as with most bureaucracies, the EPA needs to justify its requests for more funding and staff, therefore they are trying to further tighten standards, and increase alarms, he said.  In fact, according to Rucker, a federal court recently threw out the EPA standards because it was based on “specious” science. 

Michael Kenyon, Associate Director of Air Policy at the EPA’s Boston office, told Massachusetts News, that although the judges did throw out their standards, they did not rule on the validity of EPA’s science. 

“Although many opponents of EPA air quality standards are suggesting that the three judge panel had questioned EPA science that is simply not true,” says Kenyon.  Instead, he says, two of three judges ruled that the new standards were “an unconstitutional delegation of power by congress to the EPA.”  The judges sent the standards back to the agency to see if they could come up with a constitutional interpretation of the Clean Air Act which would allow for the new standards, he said. 

Rucker says that a lot of times in a legal decision the EPA may interpret it one way, were critics of the EPA may interpret it another.  He agreed with Kenyon, that decision said that the EPA was not implementing legislation but that they were actually crafting legislation which is unconstitutional.  But, in addition to making the regulations constitutional, the court wants "more of a legitimate cost benefit analysis and scientific basis" for them, he says. 

Some also question the EPA’s assertion that automobiles are the major cause of low level ozone.  A 1997 study by the American Automobile Association found that “cars and light trucks currently cause less than 30 per cent of the emissions that lead to ground-level ozone problems in 24 major cities.”  According to AAA, “More than 70 percent of the smog comes from smokestacks, refineries and other mobile sources.” 

Kenyon disagrees, saying that because more and more Americans are driving, “to some extent the benefits we are getting from tailpipe reductions are somewhat offset by the amount Americans do drive each year.” 

The AAA study only looked at cars and light trucks, and EPA includes buses in its study. Kenyon says even though AAA may slice their study more narrowly than EPA, “anyway you slice it automobiles do make up a significant portion of the pie.” 

Finally, Lieberman told Massachusetts News, “these ozone action days and the like are often supported by area businesses, who hope that, by reducing driving on those days, they can avoid seeing their locality fall out of attainment with tight federal standards and thus face tough restrictions on them.”  This, in effect, amounts to a transfer of the cost of a big company’s pollution to consumers, he said.