EPA Declines Stiffer Rules on Sulfur Dioxide : Advisory Panel Majority Had Urged Reducing Power Plant Emissions

Rejecting the advice of the majority of its scientific advisory panel, the Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday that it would not tighten restrictions on sulfur dioxide, a major pollutant primarily associated with coal-burning power plants.

The decision brought howls of protest from environmental groups but praise from the electric power industry, which would have faced a bill of between $2 billion and $5 billion had the EPA decided to toughen the rules. Environmentalists accused the agency of ignoring the health of asthmatics and sacrificing controls on acid rain to placate the industry.

Last year, the majority of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee had strongly recommended tighter restrictions on the colorless gas, saying that current rules allow levels of sulfur dioxide, that could cause serious health problems for thousands--perhaps hundreds of thousands--of people who live near power plants and who suffer from breathing problems caused by asthma, allergies or other diseases.

Forms Acid Rain

Environmentalists had hoped for a tighter sulfur dioxide standard in part for health reasons and in part because limiting sulfur emissions would also help control acid rain. Sulfur dioxide is one of several pollutants that combine with water vapor in the air to form acid precipitation.

Currently, the EPA limits the average amount of sulfur pollution that a plant may release over a full day. But that standard allows much higher peak concentrations of pollution during certain parts of the day. The majority of the advisory committee had recommended that the EPA adopt a new rule that would cap the amount of sulfur dioxide that could be emitted in any hour. Sulfur dioxide pollution is a problem in neighborhoods around power plants, mostly in the Midwest, and metal smelters in the Southwest.

The EPA has asked for public comment over the next three months on its decision and might yet change its mind, said J. Craig Potter, the agency’s assistant administrator in charge of air-pollution controls. But, he added, “we don’t expect to learn anything.”

Thursday’s decision comes nearly 11 years after Congress ordered the EPA to review the nation’s six basic air pollution standards, which control levels of ozone, carbon monoxide, soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and lead. The law had directed the agency to decide by 1981 whether the standards needed changing. Before Thursday, only two reviews--soot and ozone--had been completed, although the ozone study has been reopened.

Clean Air Act

The delay and controversy over sulfur dioxide, which is one of the less dangerous and more easily controlled of the six, illustrates the difficulty the EPA has had with its fundamental responsibility under the Clean Air Act--deciding how much health protection is enough.

“It’s a tough decision,” Potter said. Because individual sensitivities to pollution vary, “you are going to have some affected population no matter what we do.”

EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas decided against strengthening the sulfur dioxide rules after determining that the number of people who might be hurt would be relatively small and that the harm they would suffer--shortness of breath, wheezing and other asthmatic symptoms--would be “transient and reversable,” Potter said.

Potter insisted, however, that the EPA did not view the proposed change as a health versus cost issue, saying that a tougher standard would be unjustified solely on health grounds.

The EPA’s critics rejected that argument, saying that the health effects are more serious than the agency admits and that the government’s estimates of the number of people affected are far too sketchy to be used as the basis for policy.

Thomas’ decision “will condemn millions of asthmatics to continued suffering,” said California Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), whose House Energy and Commerce health and environment subcommittee has been considering proposals to strengthen the Clean Air Act.

‘Crazy to Me’

The decision “seems crazy to me,” said Dr. Dean Sheppard of San Francisco General Hospital, an expert on the health effects of sulfur dioxide. “It doesn’t make any sense to rely on a long-term standard to control short-term exposure.” People who are sensitive to pollution can suffer breathing difficulties after only three minutes of exposure to moderate levels of sulfur dioxide, he noted.

But Susan Roth of the Edison Electric Institute, the main trade association for electric power companies, supported the decision, saying that it “reflects a careful weighing of all the scientific evidence.” Average sulfur dioxide concentrations already have been greatly reduced under current rules, she said.