Cancer risk doubles in industry-backed toxic air plan for Oregon
For nearly the last two years, state regulators, scientists, advocates and businesses interests have met in public to come up with a plan to cut toxic air pollution statewide.
But before it can be adopted, the state Legislature is stepping in with its own plan, crafted in secret and backed by industry.
A group that includes two Democratic senators, a Republican senator, regulators and two industry lobbyists is drafting legislation that would do less to reduce toxic air pollution than what Gov. Kate Brown proposed in response to Portland's 2016 toxic air crisis. No environmental groups or public health advocates were invited to participate in the lawmakers' closed-door discussions.
Compared to Brown's plan, the industry proposal increases the chance that Oregonians will get cancer simply from breathing the air every day.
Brown proposed requiring new pollution controls on factories, pulp mills and other polluters if their emissions created the risk of more than 25 cancer cases in every million people. Her plan was scheduled to be considered in July by the state's Environmental Quality Commission, whose members Brown appointed. The governor didn't respond to a request for comment.
The proposed legislation, Senate Bill 1541, could move forward as soon as Wednesday. It proposes to double the acceptable cancer risk to 50 cases in a million before polluters install new controls, meaning fewer businesses would have to reduce harmful emissions of carcinogenic chemicals and solvents.
Art Williams, a former Kentucky air regulator, built a toxic pollution program in Louisville after a long, transparent process. He said the way Oregon is drafting its plan – industry lobbyists negotiating in secret with state leaders with little public involvement – is "really the worst way to negotiate and set risk levels."
Williams said industry's proposed cancer risk for existing businesses – 50 cases in every million – won't protect public health. "The higher it goes, the less meaningful it becomes," he said.
With a hearing on the bill scheduled Wednesday, key details still remain in flux, including how severe a source's non-cancer health effects should be before requiring pollution controls.
The legislation is the latest example of Oregon industry and timber groups prevailing against efforts to reduce toxic air pollution. And they're winning in a Democrat-controlled legislature that in 2017 refused to fund Brown's program, called Cleaner Air Oregon. Democrats couldn't muster the votes to give the Department of Environmental Quality $1 million to establish the program.
The department still needs money – and appears unlikely to get it in the 2018 session unless a timber group, the Oregon Forest Industry Council, and a business group, Oregon Business & Industry, approve of limits on the state's toxic air goals. The two lobbying groups have been negotiating a deal with Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat, Sen. Fred Girod, a Stayton Republican, and Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay.
Sara Duncan, a forest council spokeswoman, said Brown's plan "is inappropriately imposing a Los Angeles air toxics program on rural Oregon. We believe this would come at extraordinary cost to rural communities, as a primary determinant of public health is poverty."
The linchpin in the Salem negotiations is Roblan, a former school principal who represents a wide swath of the Oregon coast. Democrats need Roblan's vote to approve funding for Cleaner Air Oregon.
Roblan said during a Monday hearing that he was concerned about the effect new regulations would have on employment, particularly in depressed rural areas. He downplayed the risks of air pollutants like formaldehyde, which the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services classifies as a known human carcinogen.
"Many of these chemicals are produced by nature," he said.
State records show Roblan received a $1,000 campaign donation from Koch Industries on Jan. 31, less than a week before the current session began. Koch owns the Georgia-Pacific pulp mill in Toledo, part of Roblan's district. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data shows the mill was Oregon's second-largest toxic air polluter in 2016.
Roblan received a $1,000 donation the same day from Oregon Business & Industry. He isn't up for re-election until 2020.
Roblan said in an interview that there was no connection between the donations, which came from fundraisers, and his position on air negotiations. He said he had to raise money early in the election cycle because it costs so much to run for office – nearly $1 million in 2016, he said.
"My goal is to have a conversation that results in DEQ getting the people they need," Roblan said.
The Legislature's involvement in Cleaner Air Oregon comes after an 18-month administrative effort to draft rules led by the Department of Environmental Quality, which included industry lobbyists, health advocates and scientists.
Mary Peveto, president of Neighbors for Clean Air, a Portland advocate who participated, said lawmakers were undercutting the department's work.
"It's hard to believe that anything good could come out of this," Peveto said. "They're trying to do in 18 days what we did in 18 months."
Dembrow, chairman of the Senate's environment committee, acknowledged that the current bill was a compromise to win financial support for a slimmed-down version of Cleaner Air Oregon. While timber companies have said the rules would be financially devastating, industries in Louisville had the same complaint before that program was adopted. No jobs were lost as a result, Williams said.
Dembrow also said he was unaware of any clean air regulations that cost jobs.
So why negotiate?
"We want to get this program going," Dembrow responded. "If we can come to agreement, then it'll be a significant improvement."
Dembrow said he supported setting the allowable cancer risk at 50 people in a million instead of 25 in a million.
"It's a question of whether or not that difference between 25 and 50 is significant," Dembrow said. "I think you'll see a lot of people from the medical and scientific community saying it is not that significant."
Linda George, an atmospheric chemist at Portland State University who participated in drafting the clean air plan that lawmakers are trying to supersede, said there's no health-based rationale for setting acceptable cancer risk so high.
"There can't be any," she said. "It's a political compromise -- and for the people living near a facility, they're not going to be happy about that compromise."
-- Rob Davis
rdavis@oregonian.com
503.294.7657; @robwdavis