How Pure the Air?

Another kind of trade-off —between regional economic growth and air purity—was put in the balance by other litigation in 1973. The issue was "nondegradation."

Interpreting the Congressional intent, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld, in June 1973, a 1972 lower court ruling that EPA must keep states from allowing any "significant deterioration" in the quality of relatively pure air—i.e., air that was already cleaner than that prescribed by the 1970 Clean Air Act. The high court action, however, was on a 4-4 tie vote, which technically merely let stand a preliminary injunction—thereby, in EPA's view, leaving the issue open to further litigation. Furthermore, the original district court decision (both the appeals court and the Supreme Court decisions were without separate opinion) had bounced back to EPA the problem of defining "significant deterioration"—a term originally introduced by the predecessor National Air Pollution Control Administration in interpreting the Air Quality Act of 1967.

Four environmental groups, led by the Sierra Club, had brought the original action, but as the case progressed, twenty states joined in the litigation as "friends of the court." The court decision prompted the Council on Environmental Quality to observe: "A nondegradation policy is not neutral between developed and underdeveloped areas. A literal nondegradation policy could severely curtail or even prevent growth in areas with clean air and require instead that growth be accommodated, if at all, in developed areas that may already have severe air quality problems . . ." EPA made similar observations.

Possible solutions for this dilemma were reflected in EPA proposals, issued in July 1973, which presented four ways of adjusting to the nondegradation requirement:

1. No more than a specified absolute increase in sulfur dioxide or particulate levels in a given local area, the amounts of such increase to be uniform nationally.
2. No more than a 20-percent increase in aggregate emissions within a substate air quality region, or up to a uniform amount per square mile, whichever is higher.
3. Case-by-case review (by states) of each new stationary emission source (i.e., proposed construction).
4. Establishment, within states, of clean-air and more-polluted-air zones, the former with very stringent, and the latter with relatively liberal, incremental absolute emission limits.

EPA's intent was that any one of these four approaches might provide the desired accommodation, or that two or more might be used in combination. All of them were to be conditioned on application of "best available control technology" in each new stationary emission source, regardless of the other limitations, and the specified increments were to relate to 1972 emissions as a base. All of the approaches referred to new requirements to be added to state control plans or, pending such action, to be promulgated directly by the federal government.

Hearings on the proposals were held in August and September, and written comments were given a deadline of mid-October. Nearly 300 of the latter were received, notably from oil companies, other mining companies, public utilities (including TVA), state and local governments, organized environmentalists, and private citizens concerned about the potential pollution of their individual residential garden spots. Potential oil-shale developers and other mining interests opposed all four alternatives though their preference, if there had to be one, was case-by-case local determination. Public utilities tended to agree with this position, nothing in particular that, given the local-emission alternative along with other environmental constraints on siting of power plants, there would be grave difficulty in finding eligible locations.

Industry, generally, argued that there was serious question as to the interpretation of the Congressional intent and that the appropriate decision was to take no administrative action but to refer the statutory provision back to Congress for better definition. They suggested that EPA had already specified the difference between bad air and good, and that it was meaningless to be concerned with degrees of "goodness." They also objected to the requirement for consistent application of "best available control technology." It was more rational, they thought, to require only the adherence to "new source performance standards," which EPA had set taking into account demonstrated feasibility and costs in relation to results achieved.

Environmentalists also found all four plans unacceptable, but for the opposite reason: that the plans did not go far enough. There was particular concern that the excepted "dirty-air" zones (to be dealt with under other regulations) would be so broadly defined as to invite pollution of numerous clean-air pockets within them. However, as the year ended, there seemed little likelihood that EPA would rush this proceeding to a conclusion, though the possibility remained that a succession of court-issued injunctions against new construction in underdeveloped areas might force the agency's (or Congress's) hand.

Air purity, rather than energy conservation, was the objective of another set of regulatory actions during the year, but the relationships between energy consumption and air pollution are such that this set of actions may eventually save more energy than those directed to conservation as such. Specifically, EPA has identified thirty-nine metropolitan areas for which it foresees that the combination of controls over stationary emission sources and improved automotive emission controls will be insufficient to meet the ambient air purity requirements of the Clean Air Act. The most serious problem areas are Los Angeles, northern New Jersey, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento, Denver, Baltimore, and Houston. For these and the other metropolitan areas on the list, EPA has decided that there must be transportation control strategies designed to limit carbon monoxide and chemical oxidant emissions. The respective state governments had been given a chance to formulate their own control plans for these metropolitan areas, but by the spring of 1973 only a handful had submitted plans which were considered adequate. As required by law, EPA proceeded to develop plans for the remainder.

Different sets of control strategies were devised for each area, but all of the plans sought to curtail sharply the use of private automobiles. Among the individual stratagems in the various packages were: 1. Reserved lanes for buses; 2. Incentives to use mass transit and car pools; 3. Periodic testing of emission levels of autos in use; 4. Retrofitting of used cars with pollution devices; 5. Limitation of parking availabilities by reduction of on-street parking and curtailing construction of off-street facilities; 6. Imposition of parking surcharges—especially with regard to all-day parking—and (generally) diversion of some or all of the surcharge proceeds to mass transit; 7. Tolls on bridges providing access to center cities; 8. Designation of traffic-free zones; 9. Gasoline rationing.

EPA has announced that by 1977 it may be necessary to impose limitations on gasoline deliveries to retail outlets in some of the affected cities, that is, to utilize the same sort of allocation controls found necessary late in 1973 to limit gasoline consumption for supply reasons. If these latter limitations appear onerous, those being threatened for purposes of pollution control are being perceived by the public as near-proscriptions on private automobile travel. In California, for example, the reductions would range from around 40 percent in the San Joaquin Valley to nearly 100 percent in Los Angeles. No lesser constraint is considered adequate for meeting the air quality requirements of the Clean Air Act. EPA itself regards the trade-off as unduly onerous and would rather see the act's standards made more flexible.

Even with modest relaxation of the standards, however, achievement of relatively pure air implies considerable reorganization of the growth patterns of the affected cities, if not a constraint on growth itself. Cities like Los Angeles, which have spread out over a large area on the basis of automotive commutation, would have to reorganize themselves around mass transportation, disintegrate further into disconnected centers, or undergo a combination of such adjustments. Cleanup of air in the center cities, as a result of the EPA rules, theoretically might lead to an accelerated return to in-town living among income groups once anxious to escape to the suburbs. A possibly more cogent factor, however, is that the increasing pressure to limit commutation distances would be met by further dispersion of employment concentrations and hence continued center-city decline areas.

The nature of the impact upon city living would depend in large measure on the timing of the restrictions and the use of subsidies generated from parking levies and mass transit funds. EPA appears to be bus oriented. For that reason, Los Angeles officials fear the city will be locked into a dispersed, all-bus pattern before it can develop a hoped-for $6 billion rail-transit system.

Materials requirements are also profoundly affected by the particular approach used to limit transportation-caused pollution. It has been estimated that EPA's approach implies a requirement of 30,000 additional buses by 1977 to handle the induced mass transit requirements of twenty-three pollution-controlled cities. The lower priority given to rail transit, which is far more "mass" in character than bus transit and subject to much slower physical depreciation, means that the "cost" of quicker cleanup of combustion-caused pollution is probably a long-term higher level of materials consumption and probably of fuel consumption as well.

As noted, the severity of the proposed restrictions is predicated on the assumption that automotive emission standards will not quickly contribute to satisfactory ambient air standards where there is a very large concentration of vehicle-miles traveled. This assumption could be altered if an automotive engine with near-zero emissions should be developed and widely adopted. Conceivably, an improved rotary engine, or a stratified-charge engine, or an electric or steam engine could enter the market, but hardly soon enough, in terms of the time required for widespread adoption, to avert the kind of regulations EPA is proposing and their consequent lasting effect on urban form.

The tendency of fuel-consumption restrictions to promote mass transportation may be reinforced by another type of "mobile" pollution control EPA pursued during the course of 1973. This has been referred to as the control of "complex” or "indirect" sources, and was pursued in response to a January 1973 U.S. Circuit Court ruling in a suit brought by the National Resources Defense Council. EPA proposed, and in June made final, regulations which required states to include in their pollution-control plans procedures for advance approval of the siting and construction not only of new directly polluting installations but of such "indirect sources" (shopping centers, amusement parks, sports stadiums, airports, parking lots, and highways) as could cause a violation of air quality standards by attracting concentrations of vehicles. Pursuant to the court order, August 15 was set as the deadline for states to incorporate "indirect source" controls into their plans and October 15 for completion of EPA review. Failing the submission of adequate plans, EPA would propose relevant rules for state application, such rules to be finally promulgated by December 15.

As of the mid-October deadline, only eight states and territories had submitted the appropriate amendments to their air quality plans, and of these, only a few appeared to be acceptable. Thus, EPA proceeded to issue its proposed rules of general application. Although these may still be superseded by any approved alternatives submitted by individual states, EPA made clear the kinds of procedures that would be deemed adequate. In general, these impose a substantial burden of proof on developers, who must amass data to demonstrate that the proposed facilities will not cause an excess of pollution in the immediate vicinity. Such data must include details not only on the nature of the facility and the traffic to be generated, but on the already-existing ambient air quality. The state itself must look into the additional indirect impact of the project on future growth and development. If the proposed facility would effectively cause a violation of air quality standards, states are obligated to prohibit its construction or force a redesign.

The probable impact of such a regulation, applicable to all SMSAs or designated small areas whose present size or subsequent growth could threaten a violation of air quality standards within ten years, would be to reverse the prevailing tendency (generally approved by planners) for commercial and community-facility growth to take place in concentrated nodes. Instead, it would serve to restrict the capacity of node-connecting highways, promote a more dispersed road network, and revive the neighborhood strip developments of a pre automobile era. Zoning codes would have to be widely revamped to provide more numerous commercial zones, each at lower development densities.

Critics of indirect-source control have suggested that the decentralization promoted by the approach might actually be counterproductive. They argue that automotive pollution is at its worst in the initial stages of operation of a "cold" engine, owing to the less complete combustion that takes place compared with a warmed-up engine. Decentralization would tend toward a multiplicity of short hops rather than one longer, less-polluting trip to a regional shopping center. Much would depend upon whether or not the dispersion of pollution was extensive enough to average down the localized effects of the higher aggregate volume. Also relevant is the extent to which a localization of facilities might stimulate shopping on foot or by non automotive forms of transportation.

Environmentalists objected to what they saw as an undue element of permissiveness in the proposed regulations, specifically, EPA's proposal that the regulations should not become effective until six months after their final promulgation. Any binding construction contracts entered into during this grace period would not be subject to the new standards. Environmentalists saw this as an open invitation to developers to evade compliance, while EPA saw it as necessary lead time to permit states to develop their compliance programs.

Municipal officials, by contrast, have complained about this new incursion of federal authority into the traditionally local prerogative of land use planning. It appeared, moreover, that this particular dilution of local authority was only the camel's nose. In progress in Congress during the year was legislation looking toward federally required comprehensive state control over local land use planning for purposes of effectuating broad goals of social policy.

At the start of 1973, the major automobile manufacturers were unanimous in their affirmation of the impossibility of meeting 1975-model automotive emission standards. By November, however, General Motors spokesmen were no longer in unison with those of Ford and Chrysler. At Senate hearings the prime auto producer said it could meet the 1975 standards for catalytic converters; its two major competitors wanted current emission standards maintained through the 1976-model year. The GM position prevailed. And at the same Senate hearings, in stating EPA's refusal to delay the use of catalytic converters, Administrator Russell E. Train rejected the newly introduced motion that the devices could not be risked because of a side effect of unknown dimensions—namely, increased sulfur emissions. Any such dangers, he said, could be dealt with by removing sulfur from gasoline or by adding further purifying equipment to automobile exhaust systems. Senator Muskie, author of the Clean Air Act, backed the no-delay position. A newly raised risk of emissions of platinum and other catalytic metals was also discounted both by EPA and by GM.

Left completely unresolved in this proceeding was the question of whether the emission devices would or would not increase the consumption of energy. It had been widely assumed up to now that the controls would noticeably lower the number of miles per gallon. GM has suggested the contrary—that its catalytic systems would increase engine efficiency, a claim that others question.

Left unresolved also was the cost to the public of a large-scale commitment to the catalytic technology in the face of its possible early obsolescence. Supposedly, the rotary (Wankel) engine already in use in one imported vehicle could be a superior method of meeting emission standards. So might the "stratified charge" engine under development by another manufacturer, or other power plants in earlier stages of development. At the moment, however, there appears to be no clear prospect of the early development of a demonstrably superior alternative. The Wankel engine, for example, is said still to be so inefficient as possible to be more polluting than a reciprocating engine at equivalent power levels.

Hesitance to make a full commitment to catalytic converters is illustrated by inclusion, in the comprehensive energy conservation measure pending in the Senate at year's end, of authorizations for $340 million in government grants and loan guarantees to achieve the development of a new "energy-efficient, low-polluting automobile" within the next four years. Moreover, exercising his discretionary authority under the Clean Air Act, after judicial prodding instigated by auto manufacturers, the EPA Administrator had in April 1973 postponed until 1976 the full application of the 1975 statutory emission standards. This made it unnecessary to install catalytic equipment or equivalent engine adaptations in more than a portion of 1975 automobile models. Further postponements were included by Congress in the conference committee version of the National Emergency Energy Act. It is to be noted, moreover, that standards stringent enough to require the use of catalytic converters are being applied only to passenger vehicles; those for light trucks (under 6,000 pounds) can be met without the use of such converters, and those for heavy trucks are even less exacting.

Desulfurization of gasoline might or might not be costly, depending upon the method of accounting and on future prices of sulfur. The prospect of large-scale use of desulfurizing equipment at electric power plants makes it likely that, far from offering much of an offset credit, sulfur will be a glut on the market. In broader social terms, however, the reduced cost of sulfur can be accounted for as a benefit, adding to the gains achieved in air quality.

It became increasingly likely during the year that Americans would have to choose between electric power and cleaner air. By early fall, the President had suggested to states that they suspend sulfur emission limitations in order to permit electric utilities to burn high-sulfur fuel. As a practical matter, this meant both use of higher-sulfur fuel oil and a return, where facilities permitted, to generation through the burning of coal. By November 7, the President had urged a return to coal-fired furnaces wherever feasible and had halted coal-to-oil conversion.

Local acceptance of higher sulfur emissions (higher than plan, though not necessarily higher than past levels) was reluctant and qualified. Connecticut, for example, in October granted its largest electric utility company permission to start accumulating coal stockpiles, but not to burn coal without further proving strict necessity. The company was required at the same time to start installing equipment to minimize the escape of sulfur oxides. In the same month, New Jersey had made a similar stockpiling concession to the Atlantic City Electric Company, with a similar proviso on necessity. At about the same time, New York's Consolidated Edison asked for suspension of city and state laws limiting its use of high-sulfur fuel (mostly oil, but also involving some return to coal), only to be immediately challenged by environmental groups. ConEd laid its case before New York City's Environmental Protection Administration, the state's Commissioner of Environmental Conservation, and the Public Service Commission. By the end of November the city had acceded to the extent of permitting the company a rise to 3 percent sulfur (instead of 3/10ths of 1 percent) in its fuel oil, with a predict resultant increase of 10 percent in the amount of sulfur oxide in the city's air and a large increase in the areas of the city that have unhealthful concentrations.

One of the likely consequences of the energy crisis is a speedup in the rate of installation and activation of nuclear power plants, with somewhat reduced concern over environmental risks at specific locations. However, this may not have much actual effect on the rate of activation of new nuclear capacity. The additional procedural requirements of environmental impact statements and the almost inevitable chain of challenges by interested parties have by now been integrated into the total planning/construction scheduling (lengthy enough for other reasons) on enough of a concurrent basis that they are probably no longer a significant cause of delay.

Of greater import is the wider and more exact confirmation of latent fears about nuclear generation in general, as described, for example, in the preceding issues of Resources (September 1973: "The Faustian Bargain") and in a recent series of articles in the New Yorker. Confidence in the capability of nuclear engineers to safeguard against major mishaps in power reactors has tended to diminish. There has been a spreading realization that the risks attendant upon such mishaps are more insidious than a quick explosion. There has also been growing responsiveness to the proposition that a nuclear-fission phase of future energy production should perhaps be bypassed in favor of interim reliance on dirtier but potentially less calamitous fuels, and ultimate reliance on nuclear fusion or new non-nuclear sources such as solar and geothermal.

The risks are now seen to be multiplied by the problems of safeguarding and storing the plutonium to be produced in the prospective breeder reactors, still actively endorsed by both the Administration and Congress. Scientists have pointed out that the inhalation of even a pollen-sized grain of plutonium can cause death and that the problem of safely storing excess supplies of this material through enough of its radioactive life to dissipate this kind of danger is one we would be leaving to future generations for perhaps 250,000 years. And if a substantial public had not already been persuaded by TV horror stories of the magnitude of the threat potentially posed by a few errant individuals with command of a few key elements of today's technology, the actual incidents of hijackings and other acts of terrorism may have impressed the public as examples of what could happen if even a little bit of such a dangerous material as plutonium (an ingredient of atomic bombs) should come into the wrong hands.

The problem is not entirely novel with breeder reactors, since plutonium is also a limited by-product of the present generation of nuclear reactors. And though in breeder reactors the amount of plutonium is multiplied, the actual storage problem is said to be quite limited in total physical volume. One might also imagine that science could devise ways of using or converting the plutonium in less lethal form or without extensive transportation or critically risky types of storage. Qualifications like these, however, do not quite provide the intended reassurance. Before we get much further into the nuclear age, a good deal of national soul-searching would seem to be inevitable.

Some of the "trade-offs" for energy-conserving initiatives were not really trade-offs. There was an occasional net benefit thrown in. Such appeared to be the case in respect to the late-in-the-year reductions in highway speed limits—not quite uniform or nationwide owing to the lack of Congressional authorization. Truck and bus interests had been fighting such a move for much of the year, on the grounds that the potential fuel savings were very small, while the economic loss, in terms of lower mileage per vehicle-and driver-day, would be considerable. It seemed for a while that their position would be reflected in a differential national standard of 55 miles per hour for trucks and buses, as against 50 miles per hour for automobiles, but such differentiation later seemed unlikely in the light of opposition by state administrations. That lower speeds would really affect significant fuel savings for private automobiles as a whole had yet to be demonstrated, since a large proportion of that driving occurs in congested areas and off main highways. The countervailing costs in lost time remained even more unclear. On successive holiday weekends, however, one beneficial impact of the reduced highway speeds seemed to emerge in the form of an apparently significantly reduced highway death toll.

Another claimed benefit of the energy austerity depended for its acceptance largely on the opinion of the President's and other physicians. This, of course, was the presumed health benefit of a 6-degree lowering of home thermostats (10 degrees, or some fuel-saving equivalent, in office buildings). Owing to the considerable differences in individual physiologies, it seems likely that there will be some actual hardship involved, in addition to perceived discomfort.