The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is ending mandates on Colorado regarding one hazardous substance — albeit not the high-profile one that has garnered the attention of lawmakers and activists for more than a decade.
The federal agency officially ended its final 20-year maintenance period for excess carbon monoxide levels in September for the Fort Collins area, the last of five metro regions in the state for which it had imposed new regulations back in the 1970s. Because of that, the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission is scheduled on Aug. 15 to revise state rules that have governed the monitoring and reduction of carbon monoxide for about half a century.
The changes will not impact the current EPA regulations surrounding ozone reduction, as the state remains in severe nonattainment of those levels along the Front Range from Douglas County into Weld and Larimer counties. Getting back into attainment has been one of the primary driving forces behind efforts over the past five years to impose new emissions-reduction plans on sectors ranging from oil and gas to manufacturing to large commercial buildings.
But several AQCC members said during the May commission meeting, when they set the Aug. 15 rulemaking hearing, that the success from the carbon-monoxide-reduction efforts could offer hints on how the state can achieve the same results with another gas.
“As we put carbon monoxide behind us, we still have ozone in front of us,” commissioner Jon Slutsky said. “And this is kind of the template for how we hope ozone will go.”
History of carbon-monoxide regulations
Five areas in the mid-1970s had significant problems with elevated carbon-monoxide levels, explained Rick Coffin, Colorado Air Quality Control Division planning program manager — Colorado Springs, the Denver metro area, Fort Collins, Greeley and Longmont. With each of them exceeding national ambient air quality standards for the poisonous and flammable gas, the EPA required state officials to create implementation plans to bring them into compliance, much like it has with ozone levels.
Some of the improvements, which occurred throughout the 1980s, came from boosts in the technology of boilers and catalytic converters, which cut carbon monoxide in the building and transportation sectors, Coffin explained. The EPA also demanded Colorado gas stations sell oxygenated fuel for vehicles — rules the feds eventually expanded to all fuel sales nationwide, helping to further cut carbon monoxide emissions from cars.
The talk of using cleaner fuel has overtones today, as northern Front Range gas stations last month had to begin selling reformulated gas during the summer months as a condition of the area’s severe ozone nonattainment. Gov. Jared Polis unsuccessfully sought a waiver to that rule after a study that the state commissioned predicted it could hike fuel prices 60 cents per gallon, but the Denver Post reported recently that the spike has been only a couple of cents per gallon in most places.
All the nonattainment zones have produced carbon-monoxide levels less than the maximum allowed by national ambient air quality standards since 1990, and all moved to attainment between 1999 and 2003, Coffin told the AQCC. But the EPA still imposed a 20-year maintenance period to ensure they did not rise to alarming levels again, and every area had completed that period by late last year with no issues.
AQCC in agreement with rollback plans
“There’s absolutely no risk we see of backsliding for carbon monoxide levels,” Coffin said. “It’s really a success story.”
Because of that, the AQCC plans to repeal the carbon-monoxide area descriptions, maps and motor-vehicle emissions budgets and to end federal oversight of Colorado emissions-control requirements for carbon monoxide. The state will continue to regulate carbon monoxide, but as the federal government has raised its thresholds for all states since the 1970s, that makes a lot of the needed action just a rules cleanup, Coffin explained.
Getting rid of the state implementation plan that’s been in effect for decades will allow regulators to shift their focus in positive ways, he added. Without the need to monitor as closely for carbon-monoxide emissions to ensure they are reaching federal standards, the state can put those resources to monitoring for other pollutants of higher priority, he said.
To be clear, none of this obviates the need for homeowners to monitor for carbon-monoxide emissions within their own residences, as poisoning from the colorless and odorless gas has killed a number of Coloradans in recent decades.
But during a two-year stretch when the AQCC has been deliberating and passing new emissions-control regulations at a brisk pace, its August meeting will feature a rare moment when it rolls back regulations in one area.
“It is, indeed, a Clean Air Act success story,” AQCC member Elise Jones said.