AGC members, particularly its highway contractors, may breathe a sigh of relief when learning that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized a rule to relax a mandate for smaller cities to install near-road nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions monitoring stations.  Indeed, it would not have been easy to administer a comprehensive monitoring network near roadways and obtain results that can be easily understood.  Bad data could have pushed more areas into “nonattainment,” which puts highway/transit funding and new construction in jeopardy.  AGC was also concerned about the increased use of roadway concentration data in future standard-setting processes or to inform transportation planning and decision making. (For instance, AGC recently responded unfavorably to a U.S. Department of Transportation proposal that contemplates measuring greenhouse gas emissions from on-road mobile sources as a way of evaluating highway performance.)
AGC had urged EPA to avoid imposing costly and unsubstantiated requirements on states to monitor and measure NO2 levels near roadways.  EPA chose to finalize a wide-ranging monitoring provision in early 2010, despite AGC’s objections.  Now, EPA is scaling back those requirements.
For more information, contact Leah Pilconis at [email protected] or (703) 837-5332.