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NARSTO Workshop on Innovative Methods for Emission Inventory Development and Evaluation University of Texas, Austin October 14-17, 2003 |
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Emission Inventory Needs And Enhancements Planned For The US
Phil Lorang, US EPA
Accurate and appropriately detailed emission inventories are needed on a continuing basis in any area with air quality problems for purposes of public information, source permitting, compliance monitoring, community risk assessment, and accountability. In the United States, we have begun a special period when several specific and time-critical needs will apply on top of these continuing and general needs. Nonattainment boundaries for the 8-hour ozone and PM2.5 ambient standards will be established within the next 14 months, setting off a new three-year cycle of developing State Implementation Plans to reach attainment. Plans to improve regional visibility will also need to be developed in the same time period; five multi-state organizations have been formed and are significantly funded by the Congress and EPA to perform joint technical work on regional visibility. Current and projected emission inventories are fundamental to the development of state plans for all three clean air goals, and tracking implementation progress. Also, at the federal level, EPA faces statutory deadlines for developing residual risk standards for hazardous air pollutants from dozens of source categories. Since these standards are based on a benchmark for acceptable risk, air quality modeling based on source-specific emission estimates is a critical factor in establishing the need for new emission limits. Also, EPA has a near-term regulatory agenda that includes new federal rules for interstate transport of air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants from electric generating units, and hazardous air pollutants from motor vehicles and nonroad equipment and engines. EPA and other federal agencies also wish to advance non-regulatory approaches for protecting the public from air pollution, for example by providing air pollution forecasts and by managing prescriptive burning to minimize public exposure to smoke. These types of programs also pose emission inventory needs. In sum, the emission inventory needs of the US cover all three North American countries.
To meet these needs, EPA, other federal agencies, states, and multi-state organizations are at work, in some cases through active and close partnerships and in others through separate but mutually informed efforts. This presentation will describe the current mechanisms for working together and communicating and emission inventory areas with notable work in progress or planned. Some issues for attention during the workshop may then become apparent.