Copyright 2000 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
November 18, 2000, Saturday 3 STAR EDITION
SECTION: A; Pg. 1
LENGTH:
829 words
HEADLINE: Official calls for smog plan
revisions;
Final blueprint due next month
SOURCE:
Staff
BYLINE: BILL DAWSON, Houston Chronicle
Environmental Writer
BODY:
Houston's smog plan
should not require ozone-eating air conditioners or restrict noncommercial uses
of lawn equipment, the staff chief for the state's environmental commission said
Friday.
But Jeff Saitas, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation
Commission's executive director, recommended retaining other highly contentious
measures.
With some modifications to earlier proposals, Saitas said the
three TNRCC commissioners should keep a 90 percent cut in industrial emissions,
a 55-mph speed limit, stricter tailpipe tests and a morning ban on the use of
diesel equipment.
The commissioners have no obligation to following
Saitas' recommendations when they meet Dec. 6 to adopt a plan to attack
Houston's nation-leading problem with ozone, smog's main ingredient.
Nonetheless, they are expected to stay close to Saitas' blueprint. The
recommendations he issued on Friday represent the TNRCC staff's response to
extensive public comments on a tentative proposal by the commissioners in
August.
Under Saitas' latest recommendations, even air conditioners and
lawn equipment - two of the most controversial targets in the August proposal -
would not escape regulation entirely.
Instead of
requiring that air conditioners include ozone-destroying equipment, he
recommended that new units meet a stricter energy-efficiency standard.
And while Saitas would omit a morning ban on the general public's use of
gasoline lawn equipment, he would leave it in place for
landscaping businesses.
He also recommended adopting another proposal
strongly criticized by affected businesses - a morning ban on the use of
diesel-powered construction and industrial equipment.
In both cases, the
before-noon bans could be avoided with alternative actions. Landscapers could
substitute spill-proof gasoline containers, for instance, and
operators of diesel equipment could install emission-cutting devices.
Saitas also called for leaving other controversial measures in the plan
with some changes, but not everything critics advocated.
He advised the
commissioners to impose a 55 mph speed limit and require stricter tailpipe
testing in eight metropolitan counties - Harris, Galveston, Brazoria,
Montgomery, Fort Bend, Waller, Liberty and Chambers.
Officials in all
seven suburban counties but Galveston have asked to be spared reduced speed
limits and tailpipe tests.
But the only concession Saitas made to those
pleas was to recommend that local officials in Waller, Liberty and Chambers -
the area's most rural and least populous counties - be allowed to substitute
other measures for the tailpipe program if they eliminate as much pollution.
"At the end of the day, if we pull out some counties (from the plan),
the ones that are left would have to pick up their portion," he said.
On
the question of industrial emissions, a coalition of more than 120 local
companies has argued that an average pollution cut of more than 75 percent is
not technically and economically feasible at many plants.
But despite
much lobbying by the business group, Saitas recommended keeping the mandate for
an average 90 percent reduction (93 percent for utilities) in nitrogen oxide,
the key ozone-forming target in the smog plan.
In response to industry
leaders' arguments, he would allow a slower phase-in for the 90 percent cut -
completion by 2007, Houston's federal deadline for compliance with the ozone
standard, instead of 2005.
"This gives time to develop and improve the
technology and lower costs," he said.
As oil industry representatives
have urged, Saitas is recommending omission of a state requirement for
low-sulfur gasoline. This rule would have been stricter than
federal regulations will require nationwide in 2004.
The rules that Saitas is recommending add up to about 7.5 percent less
in pollution cuts than the proposal published for public comment in August.
But he said he believes the plan would still be tough enough to receive
federal approval next year and then bring ozone levels below the federal limit
by the end of 2007.
The reason, he said, is that another list of
possible rules would be included in the plan, along with a legally binding
promise to adopt as many as needed at a later date. This list includes such
measures as tailpipe tests for diesel vehicles (only gasoline
vehicles are tested now) and requirement of vehicles powered by fuel cells.
Depending on what various scientific studies indicate in the next couple
of years, officials could adopt these additional rules at the smog plan's
built-in correction point in 2003, Saitas said.
"I believe the
Environmental Protection Agency will accept this approach," he said. If it does
not grant that approval, the EPA can propose its own federal plan for Houston
next year and also impose economic sanctions including a cutoff in
transportation funds.
After the TNRCC commissioners adopt the smog plan
next month, Gov. George W. Bush must submit it to the EPA by the end of the
year.
TYPE: -LINKS-
LOAD-DATE: November 19, 2000 
