Chellie Pingree: “The amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin would prohibit funds for regulating the location of air monitors…”

“The amendment offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin would prohibit funds for regulating the location of air monitors in counties. The Clean Air Act requires every State to establish a network of air monitoring stations for criteria pollutants, using criteria set by the EPA for their location and operation. EPA's ambient air monitoring network assessment guidance provides States and counties with information about the assessment of technical aspects of ambient air monitoring networks. The guidance is designed to be flexible and expandable. It does not dictate specific locations for placement for air monitors. The amendment would block EPA oversight of air quality monitoring, making possible a scenario in which counties could game the system by locating monitors in places that show the lowest amount of pollution rather than where they get the best representative data. Let us look no further than today's paper to understand why we need to ensure the proper collection of air quality data. A headline in the Wisconsin Ag Connection reads: Canadian Wildfires Prompt State to Issue Air Quality Notice. The article reports that the Department of Natural Resources has issued an air quality notice for all 72 Wisconsin counties this week. State air quality monitors are recording elevated concentrations of fine particles at several locations around the State, particularly across northern and western Wisconsin.…”