Alexander on EPA's "Smog" Designations for Shelby, Knox, Blount and Anderson Counties

Statement

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on the EPA's announcement that Shelby, Knox, Blount and Anderson counties do not meet the air quality standards established by the Bush administration in 2008 for ground-level ozone, also known as smog:

"The EPA's announcement today is exactly the reason I have sponsored and voted for laws to stop dirty air from blowing into Tennessee from other states, which jeopardizes our health and our ability to attract new jobs."

The Alexander-Pryor legislation -- S. 1815, the Cross-State Air Pollution Act -- would give the EPA the authority it needs to keep dangerous emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2, or soot) and nitrous oxide (NOx, or ozone, also known as smog) from blowing in from power plants from neighboring states, while providing utilities sufficient time to comply with the new requirements.

Alexander recently said on the Senate floor that ozone and other air pollutants, in addition to being a health hazard, can have a big impact on Tennessee's economy: "When the Nissan plant was thinking about locating in the United States 20 years ago, it thought of Tennessee, and the first thing the officials did was to go down to the state air quality board and get an air quality permit for their paint plant. And because the air was clean enough for them to get it, Nissan located in Tennessee, and today a state that had almost no auto jobs has about a third of its manufacturing jobs in the auto business. In other words, clean air for us means good jobs."

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