Remember the newsweekly covers of the late 1980s, the photos of smoky U.S. cityscapes, the headlines about a planet crying for help? A mood shaped by those images led Congress to pass the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which prescribed such crash remedies as reformulated gasoline (RFG), sales of vehicles powered by alternative fuels, and military-like vehicle emissions tests.
Now the costs have lumbered into view, and there is talk of it all unraveling. From last-minute opt-outs of counties that once volunteered for RFG to voter backlashes against emissions tests, signs are clear that the 1990 legislation is fraying at the edges if not at the core. To this list of portents might be added the 1992 defeat of former President George Bush, who saw the Clean Air Act amendments as a triumph of domestic policy, and last year's election victories by Republicans championing limited government.
Suspect Images
Too much can be made of these developments. Surely, Americans want healthy air no less now than they did in 1990. Clearly, however, they reject the extreme measures that flowed from those smoky cityscapes. Could the smoky images be suspect?
As National Petroleum Refiners Association points out, the nation's air has become cleaner in the past decade. Yet people, including Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner in a statement heralding the RFG era, still talk about "unhealthful, polluted air."
Smoggy days can still be found in some cityscapes, the Los Angeles basin especially. Other cities have other specific pollution problems, none nearly as severe as Los Angeles smog. Yet total U.S. emissions of each of the six types of pollutants for which EPA has standards have fallen in the decade ending in 1993 and probably did so again last year.
U.S. air is getting cleaner with time-and with turnover of the vehicle fleet. By statute, that means it is becoming more healthy to breathe. In fact, the link between health and one or another pollutant has never been very clear, except to the extent the government has decreed that above some number a pollutant becomes "unhealthy."
Take the most-stubborn problem: ozone. Breathing air containing ozone in amounts above the federal standard can create a small, temporary decline in lung efficiency. That's all. It's not medically significant. If ozone were a potent health hazard, people would be keeling over in Los Angeles, where ozone concentrations routinely exceed the standard by a factor of two or three. They're not. Even in Los Angeles, ozone's a problem, not a crisis.
And in pursuit of a solution to that problem, officials should study the strong recent declines in total U.S. emissions of nitrogen oxide. Tests suggest that NOx influences formation of ozone more than volatile organic compounds (VOCs) do. Yet VOCs have been the main target of regulation. And why is NOx pollution falling? Probably because vehicles are increasingly efficient fuel-burning machines, an important reason air is becoming cleaner in general. The chemistry of these things is complex, the distinctions subtle, and smoky images just don't apply.
Clean Fuel Important
None of this means the RFG program should be scuttled or compromised. The vehicle fleet is growing, which works against efficiency gains. Clean combustion must remain a priority for gasoline.
Changes in the 1990 air quality legislation and enforcement of it are, nevertheless, in order. The issue needs more perspective than it received in 1990. For starters, officials should forget smoky images that have not been valid in the U.S. for years.
Copyright 1995 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.