EPA, States 'Scrambling' To Craft Alternative Emissions Transport Policies

摘要

EPA and state air officials are "scrambling" to craft alternative policies to meet a Clean Air Act "good neighbor" requirement for states to curb interstate air pollution causing air quality problems downwind, sources say, as uncertainty lingers over the scope of the policies that could help areas meet a looming 2018 deadline to reduce ozone levels. One source close to states' deliberations on the issue doubts that states will have time to produce innovative emissions reduction solutions of their own that would obviate the need for an EPA-crafted "backstop" rule that would impose mandatory, enforceable cuts in emissions. "Ultimately, you have to have enforceable reductions" in pollution, the source says, limiting the options of creative solutions that some states are currently weighing.