Metro DC Air Violates Clean Air Act

April 15, 2004 -- The District, Maryland and Virginia, along with parts of 29 other states, do not meet new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency smog standards and have until 2010 to clear up their air. Transport pollution accounts for 70 percent of the pollution we experience during the worst days of summer.

States have three-years to come up with plans to meet the new standard. The number of jurisdictions violating the new standard is more than double the number that violated the old rule, which had been enforced since 1990. The new rules allow average ozone levels of no more than 85 parts per billion over an eight-hour period; the earlier requirement set the limit at 120 ppb measured over one hour.

Jurisdictions rated basic have until 2007 to meet the standard; those with "severe" problems have until 2021. The federal government is drafting two other new rules to curb air pollution: One seeks to cut power plant emissions 70 percent by 2015; the other would mandate sharply lower sulfur emissions from on- and off-road vehicles.

The regulations, issued in 1997, were tied up until 2001 by legal challenges mounted by manufacturing, trucking and business groups and three states. Environmental and health organizations sued to spur implementation.

EPA Reclassifies Wash DC Area Air "SEVERE" 

The Environmental Protection Agency reclassified the metropolitan Washington area's ozone levels as "severe." The region's previous level of ozone was "serious," a lesser standard of pollution that does not require as stringent levels of cleanup. The new designation moves the region closer to sanctions and requires the area to adopt stronger pollution controls for industries, buses and cars.

The EPA filed the notice in the Federal Register on January 24, 2003 in response to a December order by U.S. District Judge James Robertson. He rendered the decision after Earthjustice and the Sierra Club filed suit against the EPA for failing to enforce air quality standards.

The metropolitan area is one of 10 regions, including Baltimore, designated severe. Only Los Angeles, which is rated "extreme," has a higher rating. The Washington region endured the worst ozone pollution in a decade last summer, with nine "code red" days and 19 "code orange" days, both threatening levels of pollution for children, the elderly, asthmatics and others with respiratory illnesses.

The region failed to meet a Nov. 15, 1999, deadline for complying with federal clean-air standards. The EPA granted an extension, reasoning that the area was making progress toward meeting the standards.

D.C. council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) is Chairman of the Air Quality Committee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Area officials have been working to submit a new clean-air implementation plan to the EPA. Plans for reducing emissions could include new standards for power plants, higher gas taxes, a prohibition on construction projects during high-level ozone days or higher taxes on sports utility vehicles. Another court order from Robertson forces the EPA to approve or disapprove the region's current clean-air plan by April 17.

The Washington region includes the District; the Maryland counties of Calvert, Charles, Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George's; the Virginia counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford; and the Virginia cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas and Manassas Park.