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Mr. Synar. Ms. Shaver. 



STATEMENT OF CHRISTINE L. SHAVER, SENIOR ATTORNEY, 

 ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND, BOULDER, CO 



Ms. Shaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, especially for inviting 

 me to be here today. 



My name is Christine Shaver, I am an attorney with the Envi- 

 ronmental Defense Fund. EDF has been very involved in park and 

 wilderness area air pollution issues for about 12 years now, and I 

 personally have been involved with these efforts for almost 20 

 years. 



As you noted in your opening remarks, 4 years ago hearings were 

 held to examine the effects of air pollution in national parks, to de- 

 termine just how effective existing programs were in doing their 

 job. 



As you also correctly noted, very little has happened in those in- 

 tervening 4 years. Air pollution continues to damage and destroy 

 the resources that are the heart and soul of our national heritage. 

 Few financial resources are going into gathering the information 

 we need, and the regulatory mechanisms that have been set up to 

 address this are largely ineffective, if not nonexistent. 



We are able to deal with only a small subset of the pollution and 

 the sources that cause the problems, making life very frustrating 

 for those who care about what we leave to the next generation as 

 well as those who have a job of trying to protect these resources 

 without the authority to do so. The accomplishments in the last 4 

 years have really been twofold. 



One, the National Park Service has begun flexing its muscles a 

 little, however, nobody seems to be paying much attention. 



Two, there has been a reduction required at the Navajo Generat- 

 ing Station, a 90-percent reduction of emissions. 



These two accomplishments are noteworthy because they set 

 precedents, and they are also noteworthy because that is all that 

 has happened. The pollution problems remain, the tools remain in- 

 effective, and what we need to start doing is fashioning a solution 

 to the problem that matches the problem as opposed to expecting 

 the national parks to live off the table scraps that are thrown down 

 from other programs. 



EPA has a duty right now to develop a regional haze program. 

 EPA's excuses are gone. The science is available. All EPA has sug- 

 gested or what we assume is that they are deferring, in fact, to the 

 Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission. I don't believe 

 they have the luxury or the ability legally to do that. 



Although the commission does represent an elaborate and un- 

 precedented effort to get everybody together to try to decide what 

 to do, it suffers from a number of problems, and it is only focusing 

 on a small number of parks. It is designed to help the parks in the 

 Colorado plateau address their visibility problems. It may or may 

 not help other parks throughout the West, and it certainly is going 

 to have no effect on the East. 



Its resources are so limited that most of the work is being done 

 by in-kind services, which have been provided for the most part by 

 those who have the ability, the time, and the resources to partici- 

 pate, which in this case, means industry. Its objectives remain 



