 If Bush Guts the Clean Air Act, No One Will Breathe Easy
The view of the ship channel from the Fred Hartman bridge just minutes from downtown Houston can take your breath away. Oil refineries and chemical plants stretch for fifty miles along the channel, blanketing the shoreline with an elaborate maze of storage tanks, pipes and smokestacks. In the distance rises downtown Houston, where the mirrored skyscrapers that house Exxon, Shell and Chevron shine like bars of freshly minted silver. From this height, cocooned in an air-conditioned car, the gleaming landscape appears futuristic and exotic, like a high-tech outpost on some inhospitable planet. But across the channel from Houston, rows of humble ranch-style houses huddle against the fence line of ExxonMobile's mammoth Baytown refinery. Huge smokestacks tower above the dwellings, puffing out a noxious cocktail of benzene, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the residents to breathe. In downtown Houston, they say the thick, sulfurous emissions that waft over the channel smell like money. Here in Baytown, they smell like death. Hilton Kelly grew up in a poor, African-American refinery neighborhood and, for as long as he can remember, has had a chronic cough. He says he didn't even realize that it was the air in his neighborhood that made him sick until he moved away. But, despite this, he has moved back to the neighborhood for good. He says he is tired of the oil companies making him feel insignificant, and is organizing his community to stand up to the polluters. A bitter look flashes over his face as he motions to a silent park in Baytown. "In a normal neighborhood, you would see kids playing outside, enjoying this beautiful day," he says. "Not in our communities. The pollution is so bad that kids often get sick outdoors, so we keep them indoors." During the Clinton administration, the Environmental Protection Agency launched a crackdown on refineries that failed to meet pollution standards. The initiative had begun to clear the air in communities like Kelly's. But when President George W. Bush unveiled his energy plan last May, he cited industry concerns that the crackdown has hindered energy production. He told the EPA and the Department of Justice to "evaluate" the program, and environmentalists say he has stopped enforcing it. The administration plans to release its evaluation at the end of the year, and environmentalists suspect it will propose "reforming" the Clean Air Act. Bush is not the first politician to allow oil companies to write their own loopholes. In fact, one of America's dirty secrets is that key parts of the Clean Air Act have never really been enforced at oil refineries. Texans know what these "reforms" might look like. Faced with an air pollution crisis when he was governor, Bush reformed a state clean air bill in 1999. But he quickly took the legislation out of the hands of the state EPA and instead let Exxon, a major campaign contributor, write it. Rather than enacting new regulations, the bill asked industry to reduce air pollution voluntarily. As expected, it has failed to reduce air pollution in Texas by even 1 percent. "He sold out the health of all Texans to his biggest campaign contributors," says Peter Altman of the Texas Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition. "His energy plan is the same story all over again. This time industry would like him to gut the heart and lungs out of the federal Clean Air Act." Business as Usual Bush is not the first politician to allow oil companies to write their own loopholes. In fact, one of America's dirty secrets is that key parts of the Clean Air Act have never really been enforced at oil refineries. Refineries built before 1977 were "grandfathered" by the Act, under the assumption that they would not likely be used much longer (although many still operate today). But a set of regulations called New Source Review (NSR) required modified or expanded refineries (and other plants) to install modern pollution control equipment. Since the 1970s, oil companies closed small refineries and expanded their largest. But the Clinton EPA found that many oil refiners had modified their facilities without upgrading pollution controls. Some of these violations were egregious. In July 2000, the EPA reached the largest settlement ever with BP Amoco and Koch Petroleum Group, who promised to spend $600 million to reduce air pollution at 12 refineries nationwide. Although the EPA has investigations pending at other refineries, these would most likely be dropped if Bush eases NSR regulations. According to Bob Slaughter, the general counsel for the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, the Clinton-era EPA interpreted New Source Review regulations too strictly. "Bush understands that NSR regulations are too abstract and open to interpretation," he said. "We need to reform these laws so that refineries can get on with business." Industry proposes replacing NSR with plant-wide emissions caps that would free them from installing costly pollution control equipment. Environmentalists say this is a subterfuge. NSR regulations are the only way to protect local communities from being exposed to more and more toxic emissions, says John Walke of the Natural Resource Defense Council. Under industry's proposal, limits would be determined plant-by-plant and could be set artificially high, says Walke. That would provide no incentive for plants to reduce air pollution over time. More importantly, it would do little to address "fugitive emissions" at refineries. "Refineries have literally thousands of points where pollution can escape," says Walke. "There are flanges, gaskets, and sealings spread over acres of piping. These emissions, by the EPA's own admission, are impossible to measure. NSR regulations don't require that emissions are quantified, only that industry updates and maintains their equipment." Communities Take Action >From across the fenceline, grandfathered refineries look old and decrepit. The piping, which carries petroleum-based chemicals to huge holding tanks, appears rusted and worn, and everything is covered with a layer of black grime. Fugitive emissions from this shabby hardware cause some of the worst health problems in refinery neighborhoods, say environmentalists, because they are released at ground level and are ever-present. Communites are also subjected to frequent "upsets," or unexpected toxic emissions that can blanket the surrounding areas. These upsets are legal when they occur in order to vent a dangerous build-up of explosive material. However, the "upset clause," says Altman, is frequently abused by refineries in order to bypass pollution controls. "Last month, a valve blew open and a noxious smell wafted through the neighborhood ... I got really sick. I felt a cool sensation deep in my lungs, like breathing ammonia, my heart rate kicked up and I broke out in chills." A study conducted in December of 2000 by chemist Wilma Subra (winner of a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship) showed that neighborhoods in Beaumont/Port Arthur, Texas were exposed to accidental upsets an average of five times a week. Industry's own records, says Subra, show that 75 percent of these upsets would have been avoided if up-to-date pollution control technology and new valves had been installed. Enforcing NSR -- which would require such equipment -- would be a big step toward solving the problem. "Last month, a valve blew open and a noxious smell wafted through the neighborhood," says Hilton Kelly, who lives a block from a refinery in Port Arthur. "I got really sick. I felt a cool sensation deep in my lungs, like breathing ammonia, my heart rate kicked up and I broke out in chills. I went to the hospital, but they are largely funded by the refineries and just told me it was something I ate." Refinery dollars have bought a lot of silence in city government over the years, says Kelly, because, in places like Beaumont/Port Arthur, industry provides the bulk of the jobs. Since agencies often wait for complaints before investigating violations, the reluctance of community members to threaten their jobs by stepping forward has made enforcement difficult. When they do file complaints, community members often have to rely on industry's own monitoring to know which chemicals they were breathing. Until recently, air sampling was unaffordable for these communities. Now, a new inexpensive device lets residents monitor their own air quality. With a few samples, they can often force agencies to crack down on illegal emissions. "This is the first time communities have been able to take a simple snapshot of what goes into their lungs," says Denny Larson of the SEED coalition. "With just a few samples we can collapse the house of cards erected by industry which says this air is safe to breathe." While enforcement is essential, the monitoring efforts themselves have also had an impact. Wilma Subra says that plants often lower their emissions when they know someone is watching. "When I first began to sample the air quality in the [Beaumont/Port Arthur] neighborhood, there were dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in the air almost every day," she says. "After two months, emissions had dropped considerably. When industry knows the community is watching, suddenly they are able to handle their waste more appropriately." Earlier this year, Subra released a report proving that the air in Beaumont/Port Arthur was unsafe to breathe. The companies promised to have a solution in 30 days, but, almost nine months later, the community is still waiting. Bush received nearly $2 million from the oil and gas industry, more than any other federal candidate in the past decade. Walke: "To the detriment of the breathing American public, he plans to give industry what it wants." Hilton Kelly is not giving up. "These plants seem to always be located in black and brown communities," he says, "because that is the path of least resistance. Well, those days are over. This is our home, and we are tired of suffering. We are organized, and we are not just going to take no for an answer." Kelly has no illusions that it will be an easy fight. Bush's plan to weaken NSR regulations, if implemented, will strip the community of their strongest enforcement tool. Unfortunately, the president has a strong incentive to do so. In the past election, Bush received nearly $2 million from the oil and gas industry, more than any other federal candidate in the past decade. "The energy sector brought Bush into office," says Walke of Natural Resources Defence Council. "And now, to the detriment of the breathing American public, he plans to give industry what it wants." Source: http://www.tompaine.com/features/2001/12/12/index.html
|
