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Maryland is ratcheting up its effort to reduce the amount of air pollution that blows in from out of state.
Teaming with other eastern states also plagued by ozone pollution from upwind states, Maryland is pursuing a number of legal options to address this health risk to its residents. These options include an invitation to upwind states to join the commission that addresses “ozone transport” and support for a request for Supreme Court review of a case involving air pollution from power plants. Downwind states are also pursuing a legal strategy centered on “good neighbor” plans in state air pollution strategies.
“Ozone transport has been a very difficult problem to solve. There is a lot of frustration within the downwind states,” MDE Secretary Robert M. Summers, who was recently named chairman of the multi-state Ozone Transport Commission. “Now is the time to move forward and take action to protect the health of Marylanders.”
The issue is critical to Maryland’s efforts to improve air quality within its borders. Maryland has taken aggressive actions, such as the implementation of the Maryland Healthy Air Act and the Maryland Clean Cars Program, to reduce air pollution generated in-state. Preliminary results from 2012 air sampling and emissions records show continued improvement in Maryland’s air quality.
But as much as 70 percent of the State’s ozone air pollution problem comes from upwind states. Maryland is still not in compliance with health-based air quality standards for ground level ozone – and ozone transported into the State has been measured at levels that already violate the current standard. Millions of residents in Maryland and other states are exposed to unhealthy levels of ozone, which can irritate the respiratory system causing coughing, throat irritation and chest pains. Ozone and other air pollutants have also been linked to premature death. Because of the aggressive nature of pollution controls already adopted in downwind states, the cost of removing additional pollution is estimated at $1,000 to $10,000 per ton – compared to costs as low as $500 a ton in upwind states.
Last August, a federal court issued a decision that disappointed Maryland officials. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruling vacated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which addresses air pollution from power plants that contributes to unhealthy air in downwind states. Secretary Summers said then that the ruling dealt a “significant blow to our ongoing efforts to improve the quality of our air in Maryland.”
Maryland supported a petition by EPA and environmental groups for the Supreme Court to review that decision – and in June the Court said that it would review the case.
In May, the environmental commissioners from seven northeast and mid-Atlantic states, including Maryland, and the District of Columbia sent letters to their counterparts in nine upwind states asking them to join the Ozone Transport Commission. For the states that that received the invitations, joining the commission could mean accepting more stringent air pollution standards. No State or Commonwealth voluntarily agreed to join OTC.
Maryland and other Ozone Transport Commission-member states are also looking at legal options that include a petition to EPA to add states that declined the invitation to the commission, which is established under the federal Clean Air Act.
Other legal steps being taken by downwind states include a recommendation to EPA to expand “nonattainment areas” whose designation requires additional air pollution control measures from sections within states to much larger areas that cover a region of the country. Delaware is leading a court challenge to EPA’s decision not to do so.
Downwind states are also challenging EPA approvals of “State Implementation Plans” to control air pollution for Kentucky and Tennessee because they lack a “good neighbor plan” as described under the Clean Air Act.
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