Here’s Lamar Alexander’s excuse for not supporting the ongoing effort to rollback EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
Alexander told Dow Jones,
… pollution makes our mountains smoggy, driving away tourists…
So Lamar, would those “smoggy mountains” be the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains?
If so, the haze over those mountains is natural was was so noted by the Indians who have been hunting there for thousands of years and appropriately named them.
Click for more info on the upcoming vote on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
Dr. Wayne Davis (Univ. of Tennessee at Knoxville) presented his long range regional modeling for ozone and the impact to the Smoky Mountains. A conclusion was that Stage II vapor recovery on gas stations would have no impact on ozone reduction in the Smokies. This is because naturogenic VOCs in the region (and mountains) are in excess as compared to gasoline vapors.
Another conclusion was that if TVA installed NOx controls, ozone concentrations and nitrates aerosols would dramatically reduce. EPA has installed SCRs at nearly all stations in the region and will now shut down Johnsonville parts of Widows Creek and John Sevier stations. Automobiles driving thru the Smokies emit the only remaining ozone precursors, unless you want to cut down all the trees that emit those wretched VOCs. Autombiles are much less NOx emitters today so, all you can do now is to limit travel thru the park. But this militates against your logic to vote “yea” for CSAPR. You can now safely check NOx induced ozone smog off the list, Mr. Alexander (if you even know what this is).
In addition to significant NOx reductions, TVA has installed FGD technology to most of its stations in the region. Sulfate aerosol improvement by CSAPR is now negligible for the Smokies.
I will call Alexander’s office (again). But how does one effectively communicate with a senator whose chief staff scientific adviser is still in engineering school?