Statement for Senator Craig Thomas
Hearing on Clear Skies
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today on the Clear
Skies proposal. The issue of clean air
is of great importance to the entire nation, but particularly to the West and
my state of Wyoming where we have some the nation’s cleanest air and world-class
reserves of coal and natural gas, as well as wind resources. As you know, air quality issues are
different in the West than they are in the East. In part, because of our abundance of low-sulfur coal, we don’t
have acid rain. We don’t have ozone
non-attainment areas due to power plants (Southern California and Phoenix have
a problem due to mobile sources). And,
we don’t have fine particle problems.
We do, however, have an issue with visibility, and we have addressed
that on a region-wide basis through the Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP),
which has put in place a program to reduce SO2 emissions over the next 15
years. I was pleased to see the Clear
Skies Act embraces the WRAP program for SO2 in the West. I am also pleased that the Administration
endorses a separate Western NOx program, so that costly controls that may be
necessary to address health risks of ozone nonattainment in the East are not
mandated in the West.
On that note, I wanted to discuss how to address the additions of Oklahoma
and Kansas to the Western NOx zone..
When the change was made in the Clear Skies legislation this year, the
NOx allowances for Kansas and Oklahoma were left in the East. This action has produced an unfair situation
for us in the West.
In addition to being different with respect to SO2 and NOx, the West
also is different from the East and Midwest with respect to mercury. The mercury emitted from sub-bituminous coal
and the lignite that we burn in the West is quite small in volume, and
different in form from the mercury emissions produced when Eastern bituminous
coal is burned. Western mercury
emissions aren’t typically captured in scrubbers, so there is little
“co-benefit” in reduced emissions of mercury from installing scrubbers to
reduce SO2. We must determine how Clear
Skies can accommodate the unique circumstances associated with mercury
emissions from Western coal.
It is my understanding that EPA modeling now confirms that reducing
mercury emissions from the 48 tons or so that the nation emits today, to 26
tons in 2010, will require far more than application of controls to meet SO2 and NOx requirements. Instead, EPA modeling projects that power
plants will reduce mercury emissions by switching from sub-bituminous coal to
bituminous coal.
I am deeply concerned about this dramatic change and do not believe
this is in the best interest of our energy and environmental policies. Currently, generation of electricity from
coal represents more than 50 percent.
Making massive shifts in our regulatory structure could have devastating
impacts on our nation’s most reliable energy source. Already, major fuel switching to natural gas has occurred and
experts agree that we will have a shortage.
I think we must look at the big picture and look at where we want to be,
and realistically where we can be, in twenty years.
Thank you and I welcome the witnesses and the Administrator’s comments
on these issues.