Washington Insider--Friday

By DTN's Washington Insider

Here's a quick monitor of Washington farm and trade policy issues from DTN's well-placed observer.

McConnell Urges States to Temporarily Ignore EPA’s CO2 Emissions Standards for Power Plants

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is calling on state governments to hold off on complying with the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed Clean Power Plan which would set carbon dioxide emissions limits for existing power plants. He says states should wait to act until litigation over its legality is adjudicated and to give Congress more time to act on the issue.

The proposed plan would establish unique carbon dioxide emissions rates for the power sector in each state, although the EPA rule would be implemented by states, which would determine how best to achieve the emissions targets. However, if a state chose not to develop its own plan, EPA would issue a federal implementation plan for that state. The agency said it plans to issue a draft federal plan this summer when it finalizes the Clean Power Plan to guide states in developing their own state implementation plans.

In an op-ed article that appeared earlier this week in a Kentucky newspaper, McConnell called the proposed rule “unfair” and “probably illegal” and added that it would have a negligible benefit for the global environment but cost thousands of jobs.

Some analysts argue that states that refuse to develop their own plans will only be hurting their own ratepayers because EPA will be forced to issue a federal plan that likely would be less flexible and more costly.

State environmental agencies now will need to consider which is more likely: that EPA will set its emissions rules within states that fail to establish their own plans or that Sen. McConnell and the 114th Congress will ride to their rescue by blocking EPA’s emissions proposal. Tough to know where to go from here.

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WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Likely to Take Effect by December, Says USTR Official

The World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement likely will take effect by the time of the next WTO ministerial conference in Kenya in December, according to Mark Linscott, U.S. Trade Representative for WTO and Multilateral Affairs. It may take that long, he predicted, because each country has its own domestic ratification process, and some countries such as Japan will require legislative approval, which tends to take longer.

Linscott said a December goal is consistent with the history of previous WTO agreements, and many member countries are eager to begin the process of implementing the agreement by the next ministerial conference.

The agreement, which seeks to iron out some of the differences in customs regulations and other paperwork barriers to trade, will enter into force only after it has been ratified by two-thirds of WTO members, or 107 of the current 160 members. To date, only three countries –– Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States –– have formally ratified the TFA, meaning there likely will need to be a flurry of activity on this front, and soon, if Linscott’s prediction is to become reality.

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Washington Insider: Health Benefits of Cleaner Air

The Wall Street Journal reported a particularly interesting development this week concerning air quality. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that air pollution in Los Angeles has declined significantly over the past 20 years and that the health of children in the area has improved measurably as a result.

The findings from the long-term study were published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine by W. James Gauderman of USC’s Keck School of Medicine and several colleagues. They show that cleaner air in Southern California is leading to “significant improvement” in lung function and lung growth among local children.

“The results of our investigation make it clear that broad-based efforts to improve general air quality are associated with substantial and measurable public health benefits,” the paper says.

The Children’s Health Study has measured lung function and development in three separate groups of children during the years 1994-98, 1997-2001 and 2007-11. The children were tested each year from roughly age 11 to 15, when the greatest growth in lung capacity and function normally occurs.

Earlier published findings from the ongoing study of children had indicated that those living in heavily polluted areas experienced stunted lung development, and that those living near busy roadways were more likely to develop asthma. The latest findings, Dr. Gauderman said, are more optimistic.

The recent paper focuses on five California communities with heavy air pollution: Long Beach, Mira Loma, Riverside, San Dimas and Upland. Outdoor monitoring stations, which have been measuring air pollution in those areas since 1994, showed large declines in the levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide over the past 20 years. As those levels declined, lung-function development among the child subjects of the study — measured as the amount of air one can exhale after taking a deep breath — improved substantially.

That is important, Dr. Gauderman said, because “reduced lung function in adulthood has been strongly associated with increased risks of respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and premature death.”

In Southern California, the sources of air pollution are many, from the millions of vehicles coursing down freeways, to local industry and the trucks, trains and ships moving in and out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — all of it aggravated by the geography of the L.A. basin, which traps much of that air and its pollutants.

Emissions standards and other local, state and federal regulations implemented in the past two decades have contributed to a major decline in the monitored levels of harmful particulates and chemicals in the air, and the region has seen dramatic improvements in visibility and air quality since the 1990s.

As the air quality improved, researchers have taken the opportunity to test whether improvements in air quality led to better lung health, rather than simply to look for adverse effects on health, which have been shown repeatedly by a large number of studies, Dr. Gauderman noted. The recent findings verify the strong positive relationship between health and air quality, the team told the press.

Following the study’s release, Dr. Gauderman told the press: “It’s strange to be reporting positive numbers instead of negative numbers after 20 years.”

It is likely that the new study will be followed widely as the debate over proposals to control greenhouse emissions from coal and other pollutants ratchet up. Much of EPA’s authority to regulate such gasses depends on court rulings that regulations are necessary to protect human health — a conclusion that is bitterly opposed by many in the energy industry.

Now, the new study seems to provide additional support for regulatory efforts and can be expected to play a role in that debate, Washington Insider believes.

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(GH/CZ)

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