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Prepared Witness Testimony The House Committee on Energy and Commerce
'Bump-Up' Policy Under Title I of the Clean Air Act
Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality
The Honorable R. B. "Ralph" Marquez
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I am Ralph Marquez, Commissioner of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). TCEQ is the state agency with responsibility for environmental quality in Texas. Thank you for the opportunity to come before the subcommittee to provide information concerning ozone transport. Ozone and its precursor compounds can be transported long distances by wind currents affecting multiple states or regions within a state. I have provided the Subcommittee two examples of ozone transport. The first example is one of interstate transport which demonstrates a September 2002 haze episode in which haze formed in the Midwestern U.S. and moved across the eastern U.S. and into the southern states and Texas over several days. Our analysis of satellite imagery and monitor readings of ozone and particulate matter shows the impact of pollutant transport on Texas communities during the September episode. For example, 8 hour ozone values in Houston climbed from 41 ppb on September 9 to144 ppb on September 13, 2002. On those same days particulate matter climbed from 7 micrograms/cubic meter to 56 micrograms/cubic meter. Similar increases for these pollutants occurred in other major metropolitan areas, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Beaumont-Port Arthur. The second case is an example of intrastate transport on a day ( September 1, 2000) when the Beaumont-Port Arthur(BPA) area exceeds the one hour ozone standard at least partially due to transport from the Houston area. In fact, when we reviewed all of the 1 hour ozone exceedances between 1998 and 2002, we found that approximately one-half of the exceedances occurred on days when there was a contribution from Houston. In addition, the highest monitored readings in BPA occurred on days when there was a contribution from Houston. These examples demonstrate that ozone transport can be significant in causing or contributing to exceedances of the federal ozone standard. We believe that the emission reductions that have been adopted for the BPA area would bring the area into attainment of the 1 hour ozone standard but for the emissions transported from the Houston-Galveston area. This is why it makes sense for areas downwind of a source area to have the same attainment date as the source area. In Texas, we were relying on EPA's transport policy to extend BPA's attainment date so that it matched Houston's attainment date of 2007. The rationale is that BPA could not reach attainment until Houston had reduced it emissions. With the decision of the 5th Circuit Court that EPA exceeded its authority to extend the attainment date, BPA is facing a bump up to a higher classification and a 2005 attainment date, which will be difficult to achieve. Attachment 1 (Adobe PDF) Attachment 2 (Adobe PDF) Attachment 3 (Adobe PDF)
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