Relaxing Environmental Standards During Oil-Supply Disruptions: Past, Present and Future

摘要

During past oil supply disruptions pollution control regulations have been temporarily relaxed. In addition, the Clean Air Act was amended in 1977 to permit temporary variances from air pollution control regulations in the event of a national or regional energy emergency. However, neither actions taken in the past nor the present provisions of the Clean Air Act regarding the temporary relaxation of environmental standards have received much scrutiny. This paper attempts to fill this void by addressing the following two policy questions: (1) should environmental standards such as sulfur emissions limitations be relaxed during oil supply disruptions; and (2) if relaxing a particular standard appears desirable, when, where and how should it be relaxed. In answer to these questions, the argument is made that disruptions could suddenly result in marginal pollution abatement costs much greater than the benefits from, or demand for, the marginal improvement in air quality from such abatement - thereby justifying temporary variances. As a result, a set of criteria for evaluating variance policies are developed on the basis of both the theoretical rationale for variances and institutional or implementation considerations. After describing present federal variance policy, the developed criteria are used to evaluate current policy. Current federal variance policy is found to be inattentive to both the theoretical rationale for granting variances during oil supply disruptions and the salient characteristics of disruptions. (ERA citation 81:026172)