Abstract |
This guidance document enables states to include the air quality benefits of voluntary energy efficiency and renewable energy actions as an integral part of their air quality attainment strategies. It is a first step in demonstrating how accelerated adoption of energy efficiency and renewable energy in residential, commercial and industrial sectors can reduce emissions of criteria pollutants such as nitrogen oxides or NO(sub x), and how those emissions reductions can be credited in state air quality attainment mechanisms. In September 1998 EPA promulgated a rule to address regional transport of ground-level ozone, which is the main component of smog. Ground-level ozone is transported by the wind, and tends to be a problem over broad regional areas, particularly in the eastern United States. Emissions of NO(sub x) react in the atmosphere to form compounds that contribute to the formation of ozone. These compounds, as well as ozone itself, can travel hundreds of miles across state boundaries to affect public health in areas far from the source of the emissions. Thus, cities with clean air, those that meet or attain the national air quality standards for ozone, may be contributing to a downwind city's ozone problem because of transport. |