ustxtxb_obs_1996_06_14_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

Predictably enough, such a declaration would make the air dirtier, because declaring an area “in attainment” means lifting environmental restrictions and allowing more local contamination of air already badly polluted by upwind sources. Barton’s Bad Air Bill is filled with provisions like this onein which “attainment” of clean-air standards is achieved by cleaning up the language of the law, rather than cleaning up the environment. Wthe EPA establishes air quality goals for a region, “infrequent episodic variations in air pollution levels that are caused by weather” must be excluded from any clean-air calculus. So in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and El Paso that will mean the elimination of protections against dangerously high summer ozone levelsrather than the elimination of dangerously high ozone levels. “To create ozone,” O’Donnell, “you do need sunlight, which cooks the stuff, but you also need a source of pollution.” Barton’s bill ignores those sources of pollution and assumes that, like the weather, man-made pollution cannot be controlled. The result of such twisted logic can only be more air pollution. More illogic? “The [EPA] Administrator may not require that emissions of oxides of nitrogen from baseline vehicles using the reformulated gasoline be less than emissions from such vehicles when using baseline gasoline.” Leave it to an EPA reg-writer to parse this sentence, which establishes that the quality of emissions are the samewhen they aren’t. It’s just one small part of the bill’s broad assault on reformulated gasoline requirementsa two-stage program designed to lower tailpipe emissions. The first phase was put in place SELECTED POLLUTER PAC SUPPORTERS OF CONGRESSMAN JOE BARTON, 1995-1996 Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. $1000 General Public Utilities Corporation $500 Alabama Power Company/Southern Company $250 Hoechst Celanese Corporation $1000 American Electric Power Company $500 Houston Industries, Inc. $4759 American Portland Cement Alliance, Inc. $1000 Intel Corporation $250 American Trucking Association $2000 Interstate Natural Gas Association of America $1000 Amoco Corporation $1000 Kansas City Southern Industries, Inc. $500 Arizona Public Service Company $500 Kerr-McGee Corporation $500 Ash Grove Cement Company $500 LaFarge Corporation $100 Atlantic Richfield Company $2000 Marathon Oil Company/USX Corporation $1500 American Gas Association $1000 Mobil Oil Corporation $500 Baltimore Gas and Electric Company $1000 National Automobile Dealers Association $4000 BP America $1000 New England Power Service Company $500 Burlington Resources/Meridian Oil $1500 North American Coal Corporation $250 Carolina Power & Light Company $1000 Northeast Utilities Service Corporation $500 Cement Kiln Recycling Coalition $1000 Occidental Petroleum Corporation $1000 Centerior Energy Corporation $250 Ohio Edison Company $500 Chrysler Corporation $1000 Pacific Gas and Electric Company $1000 COALPAC/National Mining Association $1000 Panhandle Eastern Corporation $2000 Columbia Hydrocarbon Corporation $1500 PECO Energy Company $500 Commonwealth Edison Company $1500 Pennzoil Company $500 Consolidated Natural Gas Service Company, Inc. $1000 Phillips Petroleum Company $1000 Consumers Power Company $1000 PSI Energy Inc./Cinergy Corporation $500 Dominion Resources Inc./Virginia Power Company $500 Public Service Electric and Gas Company $200 Detroit Edison $1000 Shell Oil Company $1500 Duquesne Light Company $1000 Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America $1000 Edison Electric Institute $500 Southdown Inc. $1000 E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company $2500 Southern California Edison Company $2000 El Paso Natural Gas Company $1000 Southern Company $750 Elf Atochem North America, Inc. $2000 Southwestern Public Service Company $500 Entergy Corporation $500 Tenneco Inc. $1000 Entergy Operations, Inc. $500 Texaco Inc. $1000 Enron Corporation $2012 Texas Utilities Company $500 Exxon Corporation $1000 Texas-New Mexico Power Company $500 Fina Oil and Chemical Company $500 USX Corporation $500 Ford Motor Corporation $1000 Valero Energy Corporation $3000 Florida Power Corporation $500 Westinghouse Electric Corporation $1500 Florida Power & Light Company $2000 Weyerhaeuser Company $1000 Flour Corporation $4000 Source: Federal Election Commission JUNE 14, 1996 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7