Monday 1/8/23
Air regulators respond to new details about ozone and a new paradigm on teaching (and funding)
A couple articles on ozone and our state's response.
Denver routinely has a problem with ozone, particularly in the summer. You can literally see it some days.
The relevant questions are: who is contributing to the problem (remember that something like 50 - 60% of the ozone plaguing Denver comes from outside the state, some from as far as Asia), and what we're going to do about it?
As to the biggest local emitters of ozone and ozone precursor chemicals, there seems to be some dispute as to who is #1, but the top two seem to be oil/gas and transportation.
With regard to the second question, thus far Colorado's efforts have been largely focused on big, centralized (and thus easily regulated at low political cost) emitters like oil and gas drilling, companies around Denver, and utilities. There have been some fitful efforts at chipping away at transportation, but as I say, it's harder and politically more costly (at least for now). For examples, I'd point you to the proposed EPA rules about gas reformulation and forcing your employer to intrude into your commute.
From the looks of things (and below I have a couple examples for you in order of their publication), we will likely see efforts to regulate industry intensify and continue.
First, in both articles below you'll note a push by both regulators and environmentalists to step up what is being done to regulate industry.
In the Sun article you'll note that environmentalists and regulators are suing to force the state to start the permitting process. If you're unfamiliar with the process like I was prior to reading the article, this might seem confusing. Why would environmentalists sue to make it so the state could issue permits to emit pollution? That's not how the process works, however. It's not that companies are waiting to start up while the state sits on permits. It's that companies are already operating without the oversight intended by the permitting process. According to environmentalists, it's the wild west out there and the state is not enforcing the rules.
In the CPR article, the state is now contending that they have undercounted the amount of ozone precursor chemicals emitted by oil and gas exploration and drilling. This new way of modeling emissions moves oil and gas ozone creation to the #1 local source above transportation. If they were after the oil and gas sector previously, do you think they'll ease up now that the state and environmental activists who are pushing on the state all the time?
**It's important to note here that the state has no direct measurement of the actual ozone emissions from drilling and oil/gas exploration. They are using some measurements to inform their modeling. There are legitimate arguments about the legitimacy of this approach. You will find more detail on this in the CPR article.
I wish I could say that we in Colorado will only feel a pinch from these efforts indirectly, as consumers, but I don't think that will be all. Given the political reality of this state post-2022, I think that when and if the reductions by leaning on big companies either prove insufficient or leave regulators wanting more, regulators will move again on transportation.
That means not just trucking companies, but you. It means you sitting in your car going to work. It means you sitting in your car going to the grocery store. It means you sitting in your car dropping the kids off for swim lessons.
Do you have any illusions as to what efforts like these will do to your cost of living?
If these efforts are successful, if Colorado moves to tighten down on oil and gas, if they move to tighten down on other companies that produce ozone or ozone precursors (and don't be thinking that it has to be things like paint manufacturers or companies that apply finish to furniture--I have seen AQCC rulemakings that list things you might consider innocuous like commercial bread baking), expect prices to go up.
Do not expect, either, that advocates for these kinds of things are going to push for commonsense and reasonable policy. As I've written before, hardcore activists only see their policy goals.
Do you know another common thread in both articles below? The solution proposed by many environmental groups is to require every company that emits ozone or ozone precursors to stop everything until the state establishes new regulation.
They propose to bring everything to a screeching halt: stop drilling, stop pumping, stop any kind of emitting at all. Whatever your feelings on ozone, can you imagine the economic chaos and dislocation caused by such a move?
https://coloradosun.com/2022/12/16/colorado-air-pollution-permits-backlog-falling-behind-ozone/
https://www.cpr.org/2023/01/05/ozone-data-fracking-emissions/