9 central states launch EPA emissions-cutting program

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort Thursday to reduce emissions in a string of central states, in part through voluntary corporate changes.

The Blue Skyways Collaborative focuses on the heavily trafficked Interstate 35, running through the nation's midsection to two international borders. It aims to cut diesel emissions from trucks, construction equipment and farm machinery, to implement use of alternative energy sources, and to look for innovative ways to curb pollution everywhere from rail yards to airports.

"We're looking for large payoffs," said Jim Gulliford, administrator for the EPA's Region 7, which covers Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. "But they're done incrementally."

Officials pointed to about $9.3 million in funding for various projects, but the initiative is largely unfunded, relying on voluntary environmental improvements by businesses and municipalities. They're hoping to coax potentially expensive changes by pushing methods that could bring long-term cost cuts and by giving participants choices that federal regulations would not.

"Whether a regulatory agency does it or Congress gets around to doing it, there's going to be a need to get more reductions," said Richard Greene, the EPA administrator for Region 6, which includes Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. "They get to chart their own future."

Dozens of representatives from companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., cities such as Omaha, Neb., and Houston, and officials representing defense, agriculture and health interests took part in discussions leading up to the Blue Skyways launch. In all, the eight states of the EPA's sixth and seventh regions are involved in the effort with Minnesota. The EPA also is working with representatives of Mexico and Canada.

In a two-day meeting here, participants heard of all types of possibilities to cut emissions: retrofitting truck engines, electrifying truck stops so vehicles parked overnight need not burn diesel, using lead battery-powered cars at rail yards to move other cars, reducing school bus pollution, and having airplanes use only one engine as they taxi to and from the gate.

"Every little bit counts," Greene said.

Annette Sharp, executive director of the Oklahoma City-based environmental nonprofit Central States Air Resources Agencies, said Blue Skyways is focusing on pollution coming from industries that are not regulated, such as airports and trucking.

"They all have emissions," Sharp said. "The only way to reduce them is voluntarily."

Gulliford conceded the proposed measures must make good business sense to attract private-sector partners.

"We know we won't be able to keep them interested if we don't do their needs as well as environmental needs," he said.