174 



i 



Mr. Synar. Since the Department's string of defeats by Virginia, 

 aren't you trying to negotiate things out instead of issuing adverse 

 impact determinations? Are you at all trying to work this out, 

 Molly? 



Ms. Ross. Yes, we are. We tend to be able to work earlier with 

 sources. We have been able through a lot of negotiations to get 

 stronger emission controls, in some cases, offsets, post-construction 

 research and monitoring, so the approach right now is through ne- 

 gotiated agreement. We don't have the regulatory support yet to re- 

 quire those terms and conditions. 



Mr. Synar. Are you getting any reduction in emissions based on 

 these negotiations? 



Ms. Ross. Yes, we are. 



Mr. Synar. How successful has the Department been in getting 

 new plants to obtain offsets that you just mentioned? 



Ms. Ross. We have had a few successes, but there are many fail- 

 ures to achieve offsets. 



Mr. Synar. I hate to ask this because I sat through 20 hours a 

 day for 6 months; do we have to go back and amend the Clean Air 

 Act to clarify this offset? 



Ms. Ross. I think that some recent decisions by EPA and the on- 

 going new source review reform efforts might provide opinions that 

 there is authority in existing law to require those kinds of offsets 

 to protect class I areas. 



Mr. Synar. In February 1992, the Department of Interior an- 

 nounced that it intended to issue a blanket determination for the 

 Great Smoky Mountains National Park similar to the one in Shen- 

 andoah. Why hasn't the final version of that notice ever been 

 made? 



Ms. Ross. That Federal Register notice was issued on February 

 5, and immediately became very controversial. The comments that 

 we received in the 30-day comment period were 95 percent opposed 

 to our adverse impact determination. The Department became very 

 concerned about this approach and the controversy that it was 

 causing and preferred at that point to go forward on a case-by-case 

 basis, and in fact 



Mr. Synar. I am an equal opportunity abuser, fair is fair. It was 

 political; wasn't it? 



Ms. Ross. Some would call it that. However 



Mr. Synar. We are just rearranging the chairs on the Titanic 

 here; aren't we? 



Ms. Ross. To be fair, the Clean Air Act in the PSD review does 

 call for a case-by-case determination which we do perform, and that 

 is the way we are proceeding. 



Mr. Synar. That furor that you just described, that was what led 

 to the founding of SAMI; wasn't it? 



Ms. Ross. I think our comments also helped to lead to that. We 

 were making adverse impact determinations even in those times, 

 but we recognized that it wasn't the new sources that were causing 

 the adverse impacts. In fact, it was existing sources, and the best 

 approach was to look widebased, regionally, and to look for the 

 most cost effective and efficient solutions looking at all the sources 

 out there and seeing how we could improve the situation. 



