Senators Gib Armstrong, Roger Madigan and Mary Jo White: PA DEP Distorts Lancaster County Air Improvements to Impose California Emission Rules on PA Motorists

HARRISBURG, Pa., July 14 -- A group of lawmakers today criticized an effort by the state Department of Environmental Protection to use Lancaster County's air quality improvements as an argument for imposing California emission rules on Pennsylvania motorists.

DEP announced Wednesday that air quality in Lancaster County has improved and is now meeting the federal government's health-based requirements for ground-level ozone. However, DEP is using the good news to undermine one of the most significant factors in Lancaster's improving air quality: the ability of citizens to purchase newer, cleaner vehicles, according to Lancaster County Senator Gib Armstrong (R-13). Senator Armstrong is joined by Senate Transportation Committee Chair Roger Madigan (R-23) and Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee Chair Mary Jo White (R-21) in questioning DEP's attempt to use air quality improvements to argue for imposing California emission standards on Pennsylvania motorists.

"The air quality improvements in Lancaster County, which DEP is touting, were facilitated in large measure by fleet turnover, currently occurring at about 7% per year. Pennsylvanians were able to afford to buy newer, cleaner vehicles. The DEP plan to impose California standards on Pennsylvania vehicles would have the exact opposite effect. People would have to keep driving older vehicles longer because DEP's plan would drive up vehicle costs," said Senator Madigan. "I don't see the logic in the DEP plan, and I am frustrated that they are using the improvements in Lancaster County to mislead the public."

Senate Bill 1025, sponsored by Senators Madigan, White and Armstrong, would keep in place until 2014 the federal Tier II clean air standard that helped improve Lancaster's air quality. The bipartisan bill would give the state time to determine the cost of the DEP plan, which would impose standards set by the California Air Resource Board. Senate Bill 1025 was approved by the Senate and sent to the House of Representatives.

DEP's statement also repeats a claim that the Ridge Administration endorsed a move to impose California standards on Pennsylvania motorists. In fact, the Ridge Administration did not adopt and endorse the California vehicle emission standard. More to the point, DEP, in 1998 and again in 2004, expressed its intent to utilize the federal Tier II standard. Any statements that Pennsylvania intended to adopt California standards are indisputably false, the senators noted.

"Efforts to improve air quality in Pennsylvania have required us to spend an inordinate amount of time correcting the misleading statements issued by this DEP," said Senator White. "The fact is, Lancaster County was slated to be moved into the compliance standard for ozone air quality before this administration even proposed its California plan. The improvements in Lancaster County have nothing to do with this administration's plan, other than being endangered by it."

The senators stressed that fleet turnover and cleaner federal car standards, adopted by the Clinton Administration, are responsible for

Lancaster County's air quality improvement, along with tougher standards for stationary sources, such as power plants and refineries.

"The fact that DEP is citing Lancaster County's improvement as a need to change course is puzzling," said Senator Madigan. "DEP's California plan will do nothing but snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

"DEP can't take credit for air quality improving in Lancaster County. It could, however, take credit for halting improvements if the department is successful in blocking passage of the bipartisan Senate Bill 1025 and instead turns the issue over to the California Air Resource Board," said Senator Armstrong.