Legislature(1993 - 1994)
02/17/1993 03:56 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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SENATE RESOURCES COMMITTEE
February 17, 1993
3:56 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Mike Miller, Chairman
Senator Loren Leman, Vice Chairman
Senator Steve Frank
Senator Drue Pearce
Senator Dave Donley
MEMBERS ABSENT
Senator Al Adams
Senator Fred Zharoff
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
SENATE BILL NO. 103
"An Act relating to air quality control and the prevention,
abatement, and control of air pollution; and providing for
an effective date."
PREVIOUS SENATE COMMITTEE ACTION
SB 103 - No previous action to record.
WITNESS REGISTER
Janice Adair, Assistant Commissioner
Department of Environmental Conservation
410 Willoughby Ave., Suite 105
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1795
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 103.
Tom Chapple, Environmental Engineer
Department of Environmental Conservation
410 Willoughby, Suite 105
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1795
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 103.
Carl Harman, Environmental Engineer
Chugach Electric
5601 Minnesota Dr.
Anchorage, Alaska 99519
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 103.
Steve Taylor, Manager
Environmental Affairs
British Petroleum
P.O. Box 196612
Anchorage, Alaska 99519
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 103.
Robert Reges, Assistant Attorney General
Department of Law
P.O. Box 110300
Juneau, Alaska 99811-0300
POSITION STATEMENT: Supported SB 103.
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 93-9 , SIDE A
Number 001
SENATOR MILLER called the Resources Committee meeting to
order at 3:56 p.m. and announced SB 103 AIR QUALITY CONTROL
PROGRAM
to be up for consideration.
JANICE ADAIR, Assistant Commissioner, Department of
Environmental Conservation, said in 1990 Congress passed
amendments to the Clean Air Act which created a
comprehensive permit program for facilities that emit air
pollutants. The federal changes would require changes to
statutes and the accompanying regulations in probably all 50
states, and certainly here in Alaska.
The down side to not making these changes in Alaska and
keeping the Air Quality Program being run by the state is
that industry, needing the permits, would have to go to EPA
in Seattle or Denver to get them and federal highway funding
would also be cut off as there is a mandate in the Clean Air
bill to cut off highway funding after 18 months.
Last year the Department invited a group of the affected
industries and the environmental community to participate in
a work group to advise them on how the federal program could
best be worked, Ms. Adair said. The bill before them is the
product of that group. She said that Tom Chapple, DEC,
chaired the Committee.
The Committee decided that it wanted to deal only with those
elements that were essential and required for the federal
program, so the bill is much smaller than it was last year.
Number 113
TOM CHAPPLE, Environmental Engineer, said he is the project
manager for the permits group within the air quality
section. He explained that the 1990 Act is the first major
overhaul since 1970. It works on the premise of protecting
public health and welfare. It sets ambient air quality
standards. The emphasis is to clean up areas that currently
exceed those public health standards or maintain areas that
are currently within those standards.
The two primary mechanisms to get at that goal are a permit
program to manage emissions from stationary sources of air
pollution and the other addresses mobile sources of air
pollution. SB 103 addresses only the permit program.
The concepts of the permit program are that one permit would
contain all the requirements of the act that apply to a
given installation. The operator would know what he needs
to do to comply with all five hundred pages of the Act. And
SB 103 contains the concept of being able to voluntarily opt
out of the program if air emissions are right at the cut off
level.
The Act requires public participation in each and every
permit and EPA participation in reviewing that permit.
There are administrative and judicial review features, so
once a permit action is taken, there is an appeal process.
Another major feature of the Act is the acid rain program
that has the focus of reducing emissions from large power
plants. Since this is primarily an east coast problem,
Alaska is totally exempt.
In the SB 103 the state would do the enforcement so only one
entity needs to be dealt with. The EPA, however, has much
more enforcement authority.
Number 195
Another change in the Act is that Congress created 189
hazardous air pollutants. But they didn't establish public
health standards for these pollutants. Congress wanted to
use technology to reduce the emissions and see what that
does over a period of 10 years.
Three types of facilities need permits, ones that emit 100
tons or more of a regulated air pollutant, ones that emit 10
tons or more of any one of the hazardous air pollutants, or
if you emit less than 10 tons one but emit more than 25 tons
of any number of them.
Facilities subject to specific federal emission limits also
need a permit. There are two major categories here, one is
new source performance standards which is an equipment
specific type of emission standards. If there is a specific
federal regulation for a type of equipment, then that
facility would need a permit.
Currently 170 permits are issued to separate installations
around the state. Current criteria says that any new
installation that emits more than 250 tons needs a permit.
The new Act requires a permit from any existing or new
facility that emits 100 tons. This is why they will need to
issue permits to a projected 450 installations.
MR. CHAPPLE said the state could be more responsive to the
needs of its public and industry than EPA could if they were
running the permit program. He felt it was important to
prevent federal intervention.
The fee structure in SB 103 is designed to create several
incentives that foster efficiency. They want to make sure
everyone understands the rules of the program, therefore,
they are explicit. The current program lacks this
understanding.
Number 320
SENATOR FRANK asked if he had an estimate of how much it
would cost industry to comply with the new federal
standards. Mr. CHAPPLE answered they hadn't determined that
yet.
SENATOR FRANK said he was trying to get a sense of what was
going to be involved besides extra administrative costs.
MR. CHAPPLE said the Clean Air Act requires the state to
enhance the scope of what's in the permit and its attention
to permits. There are more requirements to assure
compliance as time moves on - periodic maintenance of the
oversight of the activity. This should help correct some
compliance problems they are now having. As for the burden
of preparing the permits, this is an upgrade, but not a
major overhaul, of how existing industry is currently
regulated.
Number 376
CARL HARMAN, Environmental Engineer, Chugach Electric,
supported SB 103 fully. If this bill is not passed this
year, the air program will be put in the hands of EPA.
Number 398
STEVE TAYLOR, Manager, Environmental Affairs, BP, and
representing the Oil and Gas Association, commented that in
reality the federal act is one of the most onerous pieces of
environmental legislation that has ever been passed. It
imposes many requirements on the state of Alaska that are
unwarranted and unnecessary. If Alaska doesn't implement
the program, EPA would and that would be an unworkable
situation. Certain provisions built into the Act allow
flexibility within the state, for example, the general
permit program.
Another advantage is that the program could be implemented
much cheaper by the state than by the federal government and
used the fee structure in SB 103 as an example. They also
felt that the jobs for processing the permits should go to
Alaskans rather than to people in Seattle or Denver.
The state fee structure is extremely fair, MR. TAYLOR said.
Anyone who applies for a permit will pay for the actual time
DEC spends in processing the permit. The permittee will
have a chance to appeal the cost if he thinks it is too
much. He will also be able to cut costs by doing an
extremely good job of preparing his permit and he can do a
good job of complying if he wants to reduce the cost of
enforcement. The emission fee is also fair and equitable,
because it is scaled according to how much emission the
facility has.
The federal Act has mandatory penalties which is something
that is relatively new in the field of air quality.
Therefore, structured into the bill is a method to ensure
that the front line employee that happens to be operating a
piece of air equipment is given sufficient training so that
he will know when he is violating the law.
Number 485
RUSSELL HEATH, Director, Alaska Environmental Lobby,
supported SB 103 and agreed with previous testimony.
SENATOR FRANK asked if he was a member of the working group.
He said he was not, he is standing in today for Andy
Goolinger who was the member representing the environmental
community.
Number 497
SENATOR FRANK asked how they decided who would make up the
working committee and if efforts were made to bring in the
small operators. MR. CHAPPLE said they asked people who
were directly involved. They intended to have a seat for
the small business sector, but they learned that a lot of
small industry wasn't going to be involved. This Act really
affected the category of rural power people who were already
represented on the committee. There are probably less than
a half dozen dry cleaners, auto body shops, and the
construction industry that will need permits. They did
contact the Association of General Contractors and the
Executive Director did come to a couple of their meetings.
Number 537
SENATOR FRANK said he had a letter from the Alaska Forest
Association saying they couldn't participate in the citizens
advisory group. MR. CHAPPLE answered they invited the
timber industry and pulp mills to be involved, but for
various reasons they declined.
Number 550
ROBERT REGES, Assistant Attorney General, said his case load
is mostly DEC related. He said the benefits the lawyers
gain from a permit program are that it offers the individual
operators an informal setting in which to engage in dispute
and resolution.
It gives the Department of Law the opportunity to gain
perspective and background for comparing facilities for
exercising enforcement discretion. They can see which
operators are suffering a problem that is endemic to their
type of facility and which operators are clearly out of sync
with the rest of the similarly situated owners and
operators.
MR. REGES asked them to look at Section 156 which dealt with
the regulatory authority and noted that a number of section
from last years bill had been deleted.
TAPE 93-9, SIDE B
Number 580
Number 565
SENATOR FRANK questioned the fact that this bill would not
reach a small facility that is a heavy polluter. He also
wondered if it was good regulatory philosophy for the
Department to use a best available technology approach
rather than having a specific level of pollution or
something like that.
Number 536
MR. REGES explained that if two facilities are under common
ownership and control and are contiguous, they would be
treated as one facility and would become subject to the
permit program. However, there are certain diminimous
thresholds below which it's not administratively practical
to go.
MR. CHAPPLE commented on Senator Frank's concern that this
Act would not be improving practices at all facilities
rather than just selecting some. He said in reality 100
tons of air pollution in most of Alaska is inconsequential
and doesn't cause a public health problem. Part of the
Department's job when they implement the program is to
decide if there is a public health concern.
Another part of the act, MR. CHAPPLE said, focuses on the
use of new technology. When new equipment is installed at a
new facility, you should implement best available control
technology for that new technology. This is one of the
major themes of the Act.
Number 515
SENATOR FRANK asked if they had the discretion to make that
sort of public health judgement within the federal law? MR.
CHAPPLE said they implement those provisions now in their
permit program. There is no overall incentive to bring
everyone up to a higher level. MR. CHAPPLE explained that
one of the explicit reasons Congress said they did not want
to establish public health standards for hazardous air
pollutants is because it's gotten caught in the quagmire of
debate over what is adequate to protect public health.
Experience has shown them that establishing safe levels has
not worked.
Number 431
MR. REGES said the way he understood it is that health based
perspectives were extrapolated from inconclusive
observations. Technology based perspectives are simply
seeing what technology is out there and identifying the best
example of it for a standard. It is very objective and is
based on what they are already achieving.
He explained that there are two standards, the out of stack
emissions and the ambient standard.
Number 405
SENATOR MILLER said he would put SB 103 into a subcommittee
consisting of himself as Chairman, Senator Leman, and
Senator Zharoff.
Number 400
Senator Miller adjourned the meeting at 4:55 p.m.
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