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(AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
President Barack Obama on Friday scrubbed a plan to revise ozone regulations adopted in 2008, yielding to bitterly protesting businesses and congressional Republicans who complained the rule would kill jobs in America's ailing economy.
Local economic development officials feared a lower ozone standard will result in some Southeast Missouri counties being designated "nonattainment" zones where new or expanding businesses will face emissions restrictions. The smog standard now is to be revised until 2013.
"The Air Quality Committee has consistently been opposed to the whole idea of "reconsideration," said David Grimes, deputy director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning and Economic Development Commission. Grimes, who heads the commission's air quality committee, said he is pleased with the president's decision.
"If nothing else, local businesspersons can now make decisions based on known rules," he said.
The Air Quality Committee, and Grimes himself, is not opposed to clean air standards or the enforcement of them, he said, but they did question these proposed standards and this review process.
The regulation would have reduced concentrations of ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, a powerful lung irritant that can cause asthma and other lung ailments. Smog is created when emissions from cars, power and chemical plants, refineries and other factories mix in sunlight and heat.
"It is virtually certain that the costs to achieve these levels would have been prohibitive, and projects that were being considered would have been abandoned," Grimes said. "In today's economic climate, with unemployment at the levels it is, it simply did not make sense to add costs to businesses."
The White House has been under pressure from GOP lawmakers and major industries, which have slammed the stricter standard as an unnecessary jobs killer. The Environmental Protection Agency, whose scientific advisers favored the tighter limits, had predicted the proposed change would cost up to $90 billion a year, making it one of the most expensive environmental regulations ever imposed in the U.S.
However, the Clean Air Act bars the EPA from considering the costs of complying when setting public health standards.
Obama said his decision was made in part to reduce regulatory burdens and uncertainty at a time of rampant questions about the strength of the U.S. economy.
Southeast Missourian reporter Melissa Miller contributed to this report.
Comments
"In a dramatic reversal" should have read:
"In a dramatic campaign move". Right now all he's focused on is 4 more years. Watch how fast this socialist dances to the middle. If gets elected he'll move so far left he'd make Karl Marx look like Ronald Reagan.
If you think your children have alergies now you ain't seen nothing yet. We currently live in a failing air quality area. So, if you add more pollution to it quess what people will become sick or sicker and some may even die. All of this is due to the greediness of our current politicians and their wealthy friends. It also has to do with handouts to corporate America. It's funny they don't want to pay anymore taxes but they are the first to have their greedy hands out for more corporate welfare just don't ask them to pay their fair share in taxes. They are doing all of this under the pretense of producing jobs, but the jobs created are mostly temporary, meaning a temporary fix not what we need to get this economy moving again and polluting our air, water and land to get at these corporate handouts is not the way to go. If Pres Obama and the politicians get their way, Lord help us, there will be more miscarriages, still borns, nuerological problems, mercury poisoning not only our water streams but the fish in those streams, lead poisoning will increase due to trees they work as a filter to filter out air pollution and when you burn them they let go with that same pollution, out of 100 trees burned only 25 actually make the energy, biomass and biofuels are highly pollusive and making them hazardous to your health and your children's health. We all need to write the President and let him know enough is enough. Stop the pollution and Stop the devastation to our forest and farmland. If these are allowed to go in we will face food shortages just like they are feeling oversea. If not for yourself do for your child and insist on having clean air to breathe and food to eat.
Interested in seeing the sources about air quality actually falling, and perhaps more importantly, as compared to when.
Questioning whether pollution is actually increasing, or regulations are dropping the 'allowable' limits.
Much like driving 45 in a 50mph zone is fine, but driving the same 45 in a 40mph zone is an infraction.
Guessing people would be up-in-arms on finding out that thermal power plants typically 'waste' about 50-70% of the heat obtained from burning coal and natural gas - but that really hasn't changed. Only the amount of identified pollutants legally allowed from this burning has changed significantly.
For the numbers-oriented - 1 kilowatt-hour is 3,413 BTU (British Thermal Units, or the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water - roughly a pint - one degree Fahrenheit). Power plants typically require 7,000 - 11,000 BTU of heat input to produce one kilowatt-hour of electricity - depending on the fuel-type, age, and size of the plant.
Suggest the importance of understanding the trade-offs between the absolutes of 'doing the right thing' and 'doing things right'.
If resources were infinite, then no reason not to have infinitely clean air. IMO, the question becomes, 'how much clean air can we afford'?
This is in response to Dug. First off you need to know what you are talking about. We have had failing air quality for every quarter since the world's largest cement kilm went in North of Bloomsdale. That would be 2010. These biomass plants take 700,000 to 1,000,000 gallons of water a day just to run the boilers and to do a proocedure called a scrub. They take 1096 tons of wood a day and that figure is actually more because they base that finding on dry tonage not green. In the case of a wood burning biomass they need so much wood a day,that the wood never has a chance to dry so you are actually looking at twice that amount in usage a day. You are also wrong on the btu's, it burns at a much higher rate than 7,000 to 11,000 btu's. You really do need to think and start looking into the facts before you write about something you apparently don't know about. When you or any of your family has a breathing problem and are sentence to death by having one of these biomass or biofuels built in your neighborhood, then I want to see how you will feel. These plants actually do shorten peoples lives and people do become very ill from them, some will actually die. The biomass people don't bother to tell you that they also have a habbit of building them near schools, nursing homes and hospitals. A town down in Florida had a biomass plant put in years ago. The infant immortality rate across the state was 7.4 percent, when the biomass plant went in the percentage in one years time double to almost 15 percent. Right now well over 50,000 doctors across the US are banning together trying to fight the installation of biomass and biofuel plants. Why because they see the devastation its causing on children, older adults and perfectly healthy adults. It's not the sort of thing you want going into or across the street from you. Health cost also become an issue a really big issue. A town that has one of these plants go in can count on higher health care cost issues because of the devastating results it has on peoples health. Right now, our politicians don't care about you are your family's well being. They are only interest in producing jobs. The jobs that these bio plants produce are for the most part per plant about 68 jobs with only 25 being full time the rest are minimal jobs and out of those 25 jobs they birng in close to 22 or 23 people who are from other parts of the country, the other one or two full time jobs are janitorial. Won't it be smarter to build a fly wheel plant which makes no pollution and also creates around the same amount of jobs, or a solar/wind energy plant that can store the energy made from the days sources and runs 24/7 with no pollution, and needs people to maintain it. The reason these aren't being built is because big oil is behind the scenes with their hands out for your tax money. Once again they don't like to pay taxes but will take your tax money. Think about the waste of water, wood, air, and land contamination. Think about Missouri's wine industry, it will also suffer in the process because the soil becomes more acidic caused by the pollution from biomass and that will change the taste and even ruin some of the vineyards wines. We will lose jobs from Royal Oaks and Kingsford Charcoal, furniture manufacturer's, wine barrel, flooring, etc our wood products industry in Missouri will suffer and the biofuel controversy is just starting, Missouri wants 1,700 farmers to quit growing corn and soy and concentrate on Miscanthus grass for the biofuel to make into ethanol. Miscanthus can't be fed to pig, cows, chickens or people. This will drive up prices on feed that are even higher than we are facing now. Evenually, less animals raised and less crops produce will equal hunger like we are seeing oversea. Right now we have 18% of our children starving, how many more have to starv before you wake up and stand up for yourself, your family, and your town. Think about it because times running out. The oil companies are expanding to biomass and biofuels that's why the regulations on pollution are disapearing. So they make more money and not be resposible for the havoc they are about to release through out the US. The EPA has been rendered helpless by budget cuts and politicians. No one's health is important just show the energy and oil companies the money, they'll be glad to take anyother handout.
1) Still no air quality data provided to support the claims of falling air quality. Not to worry, looked up the ozone data from the Perry county station on my own. There must be another source better illustrating this proclaimed precipitous fall, cuz I ain't seeing it here - http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/esp/aqm/farrar...
2) The BTU numbers given were for typical thermal combustion power plants - specifically coal and natural gas. Missed the focus on biomass-fueled plants specifically, so OK - look to require about 15,000 BTU per KWH on average, with a low of about 10,000 and a high of about 21,000. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=we...
3) So a biomass plant only gets 25 trees worth of electricity out of 100 trees. Using the same line of example, a coal-based power plant only gets 33-40 pounds' worth of electricity out of every 100 pounds, and a natural gas-based power gets 30-55 cubic feets' worth of electricty out of every 100 cubic feets burned. Happy now?
4) Problem with a flywheel plant is that it is a net-consumer of energy, much like Ameren's Taum Sauk pumped-storage facility. The power to charge these up comes from where?
5) Problem with solar and wind and related energy storage facilities is that the resulting costs and online availabilities per installed KWH capacity is not yet competitive with conventional power sources. Reference the 'how much clean air can we afford' question of my previous post. Review how much howling takes place by those who already feel robbed blind by their electric utility, and consider the resistance of hiking prices even more solely for clean air. Ever consider how much toxic stuff is created during the manufacture of solar cells, or how much noise is generated by wind generators, or how many birds are killed by the cuisinarts of the air?
6) "You really do need to think and start looking into the facts before you write about something you apparently don't know about." *Sigh*, yes, all-knowing one who spews sentences non-stop and unpunctuated, like a frat boy after an all-night kegger. :-)~
We applaud this decision by the President. This is another step in the right direction in ensuring that American businesses and American families are not hurt by unnecessarily expensive regulations during a time when they can least afford it.
Now that the President has recognized that tightening the ozone standards would be harmful to our struggling economy and the creation of vitally needed new jobs, we urge him to examine the cumulative economic impacts of the numerous other EPA regulations for American power plants. The combined impact of all these EPA regulations will cause power plants to be shuttered, energy cost to increase, and jobs to be lost.
The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Utility MACT Rule alone will be among the most expensive regulations ever written for coal fueled power plants by the EPA. The American people need policies that will lower costs and help the economy, especially while the economic recovery is so fragile. President Obama should act on their behalf and pull back these other extremely expensive EPA regulations.
-Steve Miller, President, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity
We applaud this decision by the President. This is another step in the right direction in ensuring that American businesses and American families are not hurt by unnecessarily expensive regulations during a time when they can least afford it.
Now that the President has recognized that tightening the ozone standards would be harmful to our struggling economy and the creation of vitally needed new jobs, we urge him to examine the cumulative economic impacts of the numerous other EPA regulations for American power plants. The combined impact of all these EPA regulations will cause power plants to be shuttered, energy cost to increase, and jobs to be lost.
The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Utility MACT Rule alone will be among the most expensive regulations ever written for coal fueled power plants by the EPA. The American people need policies that will lower costs and help the economy, especially while the economic recovery is so fragile. President Obama should act on their behalf and pull back these other extremely expensive EPA regulations.
-Steve Miller, President, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity