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RALEIGH, N.C. — Jobs or toxic air pollution. The either-orchoice isn't quite that stark, but the North Carolina General Assembly is closing in on cutting back a clean-air lawthat supporters credit with cutting two-thirds of the nastyairborne chemicals over a decade. Legislation that passed the House last week would pare back stateregulation of toxic industrial chemicals like ammonia and sulfuricacid released into the air. A Senate vote hasn't been scheduled. The state airborne toxics law allows regulators to consider thehealth risks to a community near a polluting plant, while federalrules set a pollution standard that varies depending on theindustry. Generally, companies subject to the federal requirementsmeet them if they use the best available technology for their emissions. The legislative change would affect less than 10 percent of the2,700 plants with air quality permits that are subject to both state and federal toxic rules,according to data compiled last year. Exemptions from the stateprogram would primarily go to power plants, paper mills andchemical manufacturers. Despite that, the jobs-versus-environment dichotomy has made theissue of whether to pull back on state regulations one of the mostpartisan and most animated in this year's legislative session. Big polluters last year asked lawmakers to scrap the state airregulations and leave the federal rules. Requests came fromsteelmaker Nucor Corp.; Domtar, which operates a paper plant incoastal Washington County; and Duke Energy , which operates several coal-fired power plants in western North Carolina . They were responding to Republicans, who last year took overcontrol of the General Assembly for the first time in more than acentury and invited business es to point out state regulations that companies said were limitingtheir ability to create jobs and profits. "This bill is simply about jobs," Rep. Mike Stone, R-Lee, saidbefore the House voted last week. "Let's go ahead and pass thisbill and get rid of more regulation." House Minority Leader Joe Hackney, D-Orange, derided the prevailingargument that the state's air toxics law and federal regulationsduplicate each other. "That has never been true," Hackney said, "because the federalstandards are technology -based — which is, this is the technology you must use — and not health-based — which is, you goto the property line or over into the next neighborhood and findout how much of the stuff is coming down on the kids in theneighborhood. Those are not the same thing." Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue's administration is going along withthe changes, in part because the proposed legislation includeslanguage allowing state environmental regulators to step in if aplant's pollution poses an "unacceptable" health risk. Companies subject to the federal standards will still have toreport their air emissions to show they're complying, and theDepartment of Environment and Natural Resources will check to seeif more research into the potential human impact of toxic chemicalsis warranted, the agency said. "I guess there's some scenario that the division can perform itsown investigation, analysis, modeling," said Derb Carter, directorof the Carolinas office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.But after a 15 percent funding cut last year on top of previousyears of cutbacks, "they barely have enough staff to issue permitslet alone conduct those sorts of investigations." North Carolina adopted its air toxic regulations in 1990 during theadministration of Gov. James Martin, a Republican. The U.S.Environmental Protection Agency didn't regulate the pollutantsthen. Most other states adopted air toxic programs during the1990s, but many have dropped or minimized them since. North Carolina now has the tenth-highest level of toxic air pollution in thecountry, and the fourth-highest level from chemical companies, DENRsaid. Manufacturers and chemical companies say reducing North Carolina 's oversight for industries subject to EPA limits levels the playing field with neighboringSoutheast states. Companies are often concerned with how quicklythey can get new products to the market, and they can do it fasterin states fewer air regulations, said Preston Howard, president ofthe Manufacturers & Chemical Industry Council of North Carolina . "As a result, North Carolina is losing that production and the jobs that go along with it,"Howard said. ___ Emery Dalesio can be reached at twitter.com/emerydalesio. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as 3D Cinema Systems , Paper Red Cyan 3D Glasses for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Linear Polarized 3D Glasses.
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