By Shane Robinson
March 19, 2001

The 2001 MWMA Annual Meeting opened with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency attorney Lorie Schmidt giving a presentation on new developments in Federal air quality policy. This presentation was timely because a week earlier, on February 27th, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled on a major Clean Air Act case brought by industry groups against EPA. As Schmidt reported, the high court ruled in favor of EPA, upholding the long-held interpretation that the Clean Air Act is, in fact, constitutional and that the Act prohibits EPA from considering costs when setting air quality standards.

While the court did find that EPA's plan to transition from the old 1-hour ozone standards to the new 8-hour ozone standards established by the agency in 1997 does not comply with the Act, it maintained that EPA has the authority to implement the new standards. Schmidt said that EPA is currently taking a careful look at the Supreme Court's ruling to devise a new transition and implementation plan. The first step in this process, which has already been underway for several months, is to establish designations for attainment and non-attainment areas under the new 8-hour standards. Schmidt says that she expects the new designations to be released anywhere from six months to one year from now.

In the next afternoon's Legislative Session, MWMA members heard more on air quality issues from Chris Miller, Senior Professional Staff Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Miller said that he expects Congress to pass a bill this year banning MTBE, a chemical added to gasoline to help improve air quality but that has been found to have the unintended consequence of contaminating groundwater. Miller also said that he expects a multi-pollutant bill focused on sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, mercury, and perhaps carbon dioxide, to be approved by the Senate. A bill with this concept, which has supporters in both political parties, among industry groups, and some environmental groups, would provide regulatory and legislative certainty to the electric utility industry over a 10-year or longer time period. Miller also mentioned the Comprehensive Energy Plan Bill, Senate Bill 249, introduced by Senator Harry Reid (NV), that could ultimately include transferable tax credits for electricity generated from landfill gas recovery and Waste-to-Energy facilities.