Press Release

The WRAP includes representatives from Western states, tribes, the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Interior and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The recommendations adopted today were developed over the last three years by a diverse group of stakeholders, including representatives from government, industry, environmental and nonprofit organizations and academia. Two rounds of public meetings were held throughout the West as the recommendations were being developed.

"Reaching a consensus on this difficult issue took an extraordinary amount of commitment and hard work by stakeholders and governmental representatives," Leavitt said. "My colleagues and I have encouraged this type of collaborative process that focuses on voluntary, market-based and results-oriented approaches to environmental and natural resource management using what we call the Enlibra principles. This successful agreement will serve as an example for future efforts within the WRAP and for other environmental and natural resource problem-solving."

SO₂ is an important contributor to haze in Western parks and wilderness areas. Under EPA’s regional haze rule, nine Western states have the option of establishing milestones for voluntarily reducing SO₂ emissions through the year 2018. These milestones must show greater progress toward reducing SO₂ emissions than would be achieved by requiring certain older facilities to install what is known as Best Available Retrofit Technology through a command-and-control regulatory program.

Over the next two decades, the WRAP’s recommendation is expected to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels. To reach that goal, it established milestones for how many tons of S0₂ emissions should be cut by 2018, and for the interim years of 2003, 2008 and 2013. If those voluntary emission reductions are not met, a backstop cap-and-trade program would go into effect. Under that trading program, each source of emissions -- such as power plants and smelters -- would be given a certain number of "allowances" or amount of emissions that it could trade. A source that would otherwise exceed its allowance could, for example, purchase allowances from another source that is under its limit.

Preliminary analysis indicates that the cost of the WRAP’s proposed voluntary and market-based program to reduce emissions will be $50 - $100 million cheaper than the traditional command-and-control approach. Since the largest sources of these sulfur dioxide reductions are coal-fired electric power generating plants, a backstop trading program may reduce any increases in the cost of electricity for consumers.

As individual states and tribes submit their plans to the EPA for reducing haze, S0₂ emissions from industrial sources will be just one piece of their overall programs. The WRAP is also considering measures that could be taken to reduce emissions from vehicles, prescribed fires, dust and other industrial sources.

An executive summary of the proposed program and analyses of expected visibility improvements and economic impacts are among the documents available on the WRAP Web site at www.wrapair.org.

ABOUT THE WRAP: The WRAP was created as the successor organization to the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission, which made over 70 recommendations in June 1996 for improving visibility in 16 national parks and wilderness areas on the Colorado Plateau. The Partnership promotes, supports and monitors the implementation of those recommendations throughout the West. The WRAP is also implementing regional planning processes to improve visibility in all Western Class I areas, setting up the necessary subgroups to address areas beyond the Colorado Plateau, including the Northwest. The WRAP is jointly administered by the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) and the National Tribal Environmental Council (NTEC).

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