By: Brown S.C.R. No. 35 1-1 SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 1-2 WHEREAS, Air pollution has a potentially serious impact on 1-3 the health of many Americans, including a majority of the nearly 21 1-4 million residents of the State of Texas, and is a matter of concern 1-5 to both federal and state governments, which share a responsibility 1-6 to clean up the environment and protect the public health; and 1-7 WHEREAS, In metropolitan areas where the problem is most 1-8 severe, achieving federally mandated reductions in the emission of 1-9 certain pollutants within the time lines established by the United 1-10 States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be possible only 1-11 through an appropriate combination of federal, state, and local 1-12 actions, including not only stringent local and state emission 1-13 controls but also the timely implementation of federal controls; 1-14 and 1-15 WHEREAS, Emissions may be regulated by either the state's 1-16 environmental regulation agency or the federal government, 1-17 depending on their origin; and 1-18 WHEREAS, For example, emissions from an industrial facility, 1-19 such as a utility company or petroleum refinery, are subject to 1-20 state regulations, while gasoline and diesel fuel standards and 1-21 emissions from aircraft, airport ground support equipment, 1-22 automobiles, trucks, marine engines, and locomotives are all 1-23 federally controlled; and 1-24 WHEREAS, Under recent federal action, the EPA will require 2-1 buses and commercial trucks to produce 95 percent less pollution 2-2 than today's buses and trucks and will require the amount of sulfur 2-3 in diesel fuel to be reduced by 97 percent; these measures alone 2-4 are expected to cut air pollution by as much as 95 percent; and 2-5 WHEREAS, At issue is the fact that the low-sulfur diesel fuel 2-6 provisions will not go into effect before 2006, and diesel fuel 2-7 engine manufacturers will have flexibility in meeting the new 2-8 emission standards due to phase in between 2007 and 2010; the slow 2-9 rate of turnover among commercial fleets means that these federal 2-10 emission control measures will likely have little effect until 2-11 several years after that, when a sufficient number of these trucks 2-12 and buses are in operation; and 2-13 WHEREAS, Currently, the State of Texas has nine metropolitan 2-14 areas that either have been designated as nonattainment areas by 2-15 the EPA or are close to exceeding the National Ambient Air Quality 2-16 Standards (NAAQS) for one or more of the regulated pollutants; 2-17 these nonattainment or near-nonattainment areas have been given 2-18 strict time lines for their emission reduction efforts based on the 2-19 severity of pollution in the area; and 2-20 WHEREAS, Because of the lengthy time line for the reduction 2-21 of emissions from federally controlled sources, the federally 2-22 mandated attainment date for some NAAQS nonattainment regions in 2-23 Texas, such as the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area, will arrive 2-24 long before the effects of federal air quality improvement efforts 2-25 can be realized; and 2-26 WHEREAS, Texas is forced to require state-controlled emission 3-1 sources to make significant reductions in pollution in a relatively 3-2 short period of time while federally controlled sources continue to 3-3 contaminate the state's environment; and 3-4 WHEREAS, The incongruence in the federal and state time lines 3-5 for emission reductions places an undue burden on the state to 3-6 lower air pollution significantly enough to be in attainment with 3-7 the NAAQS without a corresponding decrease in emissions from any of 3-8 the myriad federally controlled emission sources; now, therefore, 3-9 be it 3-10 RESOLVED, That the 77th Legislature of the State of Texas 3-11 hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to 3-12 require federally controlled emission sources to reduce their 3-13 emissions by the same percentages and on the same schedule as 3-14 state-controlled sources; and, be it further 3-15 RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official 3-16 copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to 3-17 the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of 3-18 the senate of the United States Congress, and to all members of the 3-19 Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this 3-20 resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a 3-21 memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.