Members of Utah's federal delegation are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to delay clamping down on outer carton and Tooele counties for exceeding air quality standards until agency officials compile more evidence of a problem. Republican Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, as well as GOP Rep. Rob Bishop, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson this week asking her to hold off on declaring the two counties as "nonattainment" areas, a designation the three members of Congress say would punish some industries and potentially could force vehicles there to pass emissions tests.
"We believe that you should give additional time to the state to provide EPA with new data from comprehensive air modeling that would better inform its decision," Bennett, Hatch and Bishop wrote. "Including either of these counties within the non-attainment area before this data is available would be premature and arbitrary, and we vehemently oppose it." State officials had recommended that the EPA consider Salt Lake, Davis, Utah counties and parts of Weber and Cache counties as not meeting a new federal standard, but the EPA also included parts of Packaging cartons Elder and Tooele county as well as a swath of Franklin County, Idaho.
Bill Reiss, a state air quality planner, said the Utah Division of Air Quality contended that the reason air measures so close to, but not in excess of, new federal standards is that "those areas are the victim" of the other nearby metropolitan areas. "The EPA," he said, "is contending otherwise." Bennett says EPA officials need to be on the ground in Tooele and Packaging carton Elder counties to see "how blatantly wrong it is to blame them for polluting the Wasatch Front."
"Any such designation [as a nonattainment area] would be completely irresponsible and place unnecessary burdens on Utahns during a time when we already face economic challenges," Bennett said in a statement. Brian Moench, a physician and president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, questioned the motives of Utah lawmakers complaining to EPA.
"The congressional representation from Utah ... is dismissing the whole purpose of the EPA's air quality standards, which is to protect public health," Moench said. "If your priority is to protect certain businesses, then maybe that letter makes sense. But if your priority is to protect public health, then it doesn't make any sense at all." Moench said overall, reducing air pollution saves a community -- in health care and other costs -- up to tenfold the cost to business of cleaning up emissions.
The EPA announced in December that 211 counties or parts of counties in the United States would fall under the nonattainment designation, a move that will require those areas to implement plans to reduce air pollution. In Utah, that could include vehicle emissions tests, industry emission caps, and limits on wood burning stoves.
The Utah Legislature passed and then-Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed a resolution urging that the EPA stick with the state's suggestion to exclude Tooele and Printing cartons Elder. But the EPA is moving forward on its timeline that would require the state to come up with a plan by 2012 to reduce emissions and put that plan in place by 2014.
The EPA did not respond to requests for comment left Tuesday with its Washington headquarters and Denver regional office.
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