Port Arthur plant gets attention in D.C.
Mishap-laden refinery focus of clean air laws

July 31, 2002, 1:55AM

By KAREN MASTERSON A
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Port Arthur, a community that borders oil refineries, was again in the national spotlight Tuesday during a Senate hearing on industry pollution, air quality and the extent to which federal environmental laws are enforced.

Eric Schaeffer, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, said a Premcor refinery in Port Arthur exemplifies what's wrong with the nation's pollution tracking programs.

According to state data, the plant accidentally released 400 tons of pollutants from December to March.

usually result in fines or count as part of permitted emissions. And if the cases are isolated, they do not require plant managers to do anything.

But Schaeffer, who quit as head of EPA's clean air enforcement office to protest the Bush administration's planned changes to the Clean Air Act, said refineries like Premcor take advantage of the law.

"The Clean Air Act recognizes an exemption for genuine malfunctions that are not reasonably foreseeable, but too many of these accidents seem to occur repeatedly at the same source," Schaeffer told a Senate judiciary subcommittee.

Tuesday's hearing was part of a series of investigations into the way the Bush administration intends to handle the problems of industrial emissions.

Premcor has been swept up as a type of poster child for why tougher actions against refineries are needed. That is in part because Port Arthur activists have been able to link problems at the plant to a national debate over Bush's environmental policies.

Earlier this month, a Port Arthur activist told a panel of senators that Bush's plan to ease clean air requirements would hurt residents of his poor, largely minority community.

Bush's plan, which EPA officials said will soon take effect, would let plants such as Premcor increase pollution levels in order to meet federal requirements to produce cleaner-burning motor fuels.

A Premcor plant manager said Tuesday's hearing on accidental emissions was unfair because it singled out the Port Arthur plant, when all refineries have accidents.

"You can take any numbers and make them look good or bad," said Arturo Gracia, environmental team leader at the Port Arthur Premcor plant. "They talk about 400 tons of pollution, but what about the millions of tons of pollution that were prevented?"

He said the plant has three tail gas units, which almost entirely reduce certain plant emissions. Premcor officials say overall emissions have gone down 40 percent since the company took over the plant in the mid-1990s.

But one faulty unit caused a quarter of the plant's accidental emissions during the four months in question.

"You don't get to have the same accident over and over again and still claim it's an accident," Schaeffer said of the way EPA enforcement is supposed to work. "If you run off the road again and again, pretty soon someone questions your driving abilities."

Industry representatives charge that upsets and fugitive emissions from leaky valves are not intentional and are hard to control, given crude oil processing requires miles of piping and varied machinery. They added that plants promptly fix problems, once they're discovered, and report all accidental emissions they know about.

But a recent study in Houston found that pollutants in the air were far greater than what industries reported, indicating that refineries either don't know or won't tell how much accidental pollution they're responsible for.

Democrats intend to use the issue, believed to be a nationwide problem, against Republicans in the November elections.

"Recent news of corporate irresponsibility tells us that too many polluters believe they can avoid public scrutiny while blatantly violating state and national environmental laws," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., who chaired Tuesday's hearing.

He said now that the Senate has passed laws to clamp down on corrupt accounting practices among white-collar criminals, legislators need to look at whether new rules are needed to stop "green-collar criminals."

Scott Segal, a Houston attorney and lobbyist representing the oil industry, said the comparison is unfair: "The laws of accounting are made by human beings. By contrast, when a refinery faces upset conditions, that's a matter of technology."

The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission has not returned repeated requests for information on accidental emissions at Premcor's plant in Port Arthur. Nor has the commission responded to requests for information on Premcor's permit request to raise official emissions by as much as 500 tons annually.

Port Arthur activist Hilton Kelley, who asked the commission to turn down Premcor's permit request, said he is awaiting word from the commission on whether it will grant his community a hearing on the matter.

In the meantime, Kelley said, the focus on Premcor's plant has brought welcome attention to the quest for cleaner air.

Rep. Nick Lampson, a Democrat who represents Beaumont, is planning to take what Kelley calls the "toxic tour" of his neighborhood -- which runs along the fence line of Premcor's plant.

"He realized that the neighborhoods surrounding the plant have a real problem," said Tom Combs, Lampson's chief of staff. "So he's anxious to see what steps need to be taken to protect those neighborhoods." Lampson also will meet with plant managers.

Meanwhile, Premcor manager Gracia said he is suspicious of the media attention: "There may be other agendas here that I'm not aware of."

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