Arizona State Representative Bob Thorpe is sponsoring legislation; House Bill 2698, in order to assert Arizona’s right to choose whether it cooperates with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) on air quality standards established under the Clean Air Act for airborne particulates, including PM-10.
HB2698 amends title 49, Chapter 3, article 2 of Arizona Revised Statutes.
Thorpe notes that the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case Printz Mack v U.S. said, “The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program…such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”
The legislation was assigned Feb. 12 to the House committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources.
“The Act defines PM-10 as an emission from a smoke stack, exhaust pipe or other source. It does not refer to dust,” Thorpe said. “My legislation recalibrates the relationship between Arizona and the federal government when it comes to managing air quality, and distinguishes between emissions and naturally occuring airborne dust.”
Thorpe added that the legislation does not prevent the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality from monitoring or tracking PM-10, PM-2.5 and other particulates.
Thorpe has been a staunch advocate for his constituents in Northern Arizona, home of the Navajo Generating Station. In the past Thorpe expressed concerns that about the proposed new EPA restrictions which he says, “do not improve the quality of our air or the health of our citizens, they only address the “visible haze” that tourists might see, of which our generating stations contribute only a very small fraction of the haze.”
According to Thorpe, “Arizona originally had an agreement that gave us until 2064 to further upgrade our clean-burning coal electrical stations. Now under Obama, the EPA has changed its mind, and is forcing the new changes by 2018, for example, costing Navajo Generating Station utility customers about $1.1 Billion.”
Just this week, Arizona Congressman David Schweikert chaired the House Science, Space, and Technology Environment Environment Subcommittee Hearing, “Ensuring Open Science at EPA.”
Chairman Schweikert and the Committee introduced the Secret Science Reform Act of 2014 (H.R. 4012) this month, prohibiting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from proposing regulations based on scienctific data that are not transparent or reproducible.
“The Secret Science Reform Act ends costly EPA rulemaking from happening behind closed doors and out of public view,” said Chairman Schweikert. “I look forward to engaging professionals in the field on this legislation.”
“I believe public policy should come from public data and for far too long, the EPA has approved regulations that have placed a financial burden on economic growth in this country with no public evidence to justify their actions.”