§7619 Air Quality Monitoring

Summary

The Administrator must create national rules for a system that watches air quality across the United States. The system must use the same methods and a single air quality index everywhere. It must place monitoring stations in big cities and other needed places so they add to, but do not repeat, what States already monitor. The system must produce daily analysis and reports using the common index, keep records of the monitoring data, and make regular public reports. The Administrator, or other federal departments or agencies the President picks (including the National Weather Service), may run the system. Any State monitoring required under section 7410 must use the new national methods and index as soon as possible after the rules are made. The Administrator must also make rules about how to handle monitoring data affected by “exceptional events.” An exceptional event is one that harms air quality, cannot reasonably be controlled or prevented, is either a rare human-caused event at a place or a natural event, and is officially found to be exceptional. Exceptional events do not include air stagnation or inversions, high heat or lack of rain, or pollution from sources breaking the rules. The Administrator had to publish proposed rules by March 1, 2006, and must issue final rules within 1 year after that proposal, after giving people a chance to speak. The rules must follow basic principles such as putting public health first, giving timely notice when air is unhealthy, keeping all data in a public federal database, and making sure rare events are represented correctly. At a minimum, the rules must require reliable government data to show an exceptional event, a clear link between the event and any air quality exceedance at a monitor, a public process for making the determination, and a way for a Governor to ask the Administrator to exclude data caused directly by an exceptional event from determinations about standard exceedances or violations. Until those final rules take effect, the following guidance continues to apply: Guidance on the identification and use of air quality data affected by exceptional events (July 1986); Areas affected by PM–10 natural events, May 30, 1996; and Appendices I, K, and N to part 50 of title 40, Code of Federal Regulations.