The forecast for air quality in Western North Carolina is still hazy.

At the recent Governor’s Summit on Mountain Air Quality held in Gatlinburg, there was much praise for the clean air bill in North Carolina’s House. The problem is that the bill is still in the House. After sailing through the Senate, it has landed in a quagmire in the Public Utilities Committee. Some legislators are beginning to doubt whether or not the bill will pass. At issue, of course, is money.

We hear the rhetoric from the politicians: “... it is much cheaper to clean smokestacks than it is to clean lungs,” says Gov. Mike Easley.

All we see, however, is stonewalling in the House by Duke Power, Progressive (formerly CP&L), and other businesses and industries. Meanwhile, a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) congressional report states in regards to respiratory illnesses: “Death rates for all causes were higher in North Carolina and Tennessee than in the United States,” and, “Death rates for chronic lung diseases were higher in North Carolina and Tennessee than in the United States.”

U.S. Rep. Charles Taylor cited the GAO report when he re-introduced his Great Smoky Mountains Clean Air Act in the House of Representatives. This act is directed towards the Tennessee Valley Authority’s old “grandfathered” coal-burning power plants which are exempt from more stringent clean air standards.

TVA’s response is that it has spent over $2.5 billion cleaning up its 11 fossil-fuel plants and, from its website, “TVA’s aim is to balance the need for low cost reliable power with the necessity of protecting the environment we all share.”

Once again, all the right words, but what are TVA’s latest actions? The same week Taylor introduced his bill, it was revealed that TVA was part of a coalition of electric utilities, including Duke Energy, which had hired former Republican National Committee Chairman, Haley Barbour to lobby Congress on its behalf.

According to a TVA spokesperson, the National Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, which was created this past May, is a forum for sharing information and technology. And of course, since the TVA is a government entity it cannot lobby Congress. The $45,000 it paid through June and the $15,000 a month it has committed thereafter will be used to conduct studies to determine if federal air standards are excessive.

Meanwhile, according to the executive summary of the North Carolina Clean Smokestacks Plan, “Visibility in the southeast has declined by 75 percent from natural levels. One should be able to see for 93 miles on an average day in the Smoky Mountains, but now air pollution has reduced this to an average of 22 miles ... Rainfall in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is five to 10 times more acidic than normal rainfall.”

But we need power, right? How will we produce it? U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality and supporter of President Bush’s energy plan, gave the administration’s perspective at the June 1 summit in Gatlinburg.

He told the audience he would be happy to talk with environmentalists about conserving a million barrels of oil a day, but first they would have to be willing to talk about extracting a million barrels a day from the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge.

“We have to have nuclear and coal in play,” Barton said. “It’s because we’re a growing economy. If you’re happy to be a nation of 280 million people, if you’re happy with your regional population and don’t want growth, then you don’t want a comprehensive energy policy. You want pure conservation. You want people to tighten their belts. You want them to do with less. But I doubt very seriously that’s what the general population of Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and the rest of the region want. I know it’s not what we want in Texas. We’re proud we’re growing. We’re proud we added four million people between 1990 and 2000. “We want to protect the environment but we also want to provide food for our children and fuel for our economic growth. That’s what I’m all about as chairman of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee.”

Barton also said carbon dioxide was not a pollutant and the Clean Air Act was the reason for the energy crisis in California. He said his committee would be scrutinizing the Clean Air Act when it came up for reauthorization this year. He said there are ways to make it more “efficient.”

What about the Clean Air Act? The Supreme Court recently ruled the Clean Air Act was constitutional and the EPA had the authority to enforce it. But the court asked EPA to revisit the methods it would use to switch from one-hour ozone standards to eight-hour standards.

Once the standards are set, unless something extraordinary occurs, many Western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee counties will once again face non-attainment.

North Carolina lawmakers are patting themselves on the back because they have a good bill that may not make it through the House. Taylor’s bill sits in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee while Haley Barbour twists arms on behalf of Duke and other utilities, excluding, of course, TVA, and environmentalists, energy companies and the administration are drawing lines in the sand regarding our new national energy policy.

If you see cleaner air emanating from this scenario, please point it out to me. I’m definitely still stuck in the haze.

 

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