Administration should finalize proposed changes to strengthen the Regional Haze Rule

Recently, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy visited Shenandoah National Park – an awe-inspiring treasure in my Luray, Va., backyard. They climbed Hawksbill Summit both to celebrate progress towards cleaner air in our national parks and park communities, and to highlight the remaining challenges and opportunities to achieve truly clean air for our parks, their visitors, and their neighbors.

Why do I care?

{mosads}My clients visit my family business, Darryl Haley’s Bed & Breakfast, to enjoy beautiful views at Shenandoah National Park. They expect the air to be cleaner and fresher than the air they breathe in their urban communities.

Most of my clients have an active, outdoors-oriented lifestyle. They want to bike and hike and otherwise enjoy the outdoors. When the air is not clean, they can feel and see the difference.

I also work as a physical trainer, and promote human health and fitness. When the air quality is poor, I’m concerned. Poor air quality can affect people working out – and anyone working or exercising outside.

Even people in great shape can notice it’s more difficult for them to breathe on days when air pollution levels are high. Today people have greater awareness of the need to exercise and improve their fitness, for weight control and for overall health. Poor air quality can undermine a person’s efforts to increase fitness by exercising outdoors.

I first visited Shenandoah National Park on a bike ride in 2012. Since then, I’ve hosted young people from Washington, D.C., on camping trips to introduce them to the beauty and majesty of the national parks, and to understand that as Americans, they have access to these awesome places.

Parks like Shenandoah provide a stark contrast with the urban concrete jungles where these young people live. I have organized trips to Shenandoah to expose urban young people to clean air and green space, so they can experience the delights of the great outdoors.

For almost all of the young people on these trips, it is their first camping trip, and for most it is their first time ever outside of the city. It is important that the quality of the park continue to improve, so that visitors like these young people will want to return, and will want to bring their own families in the future. 

My family moved to Luray to pursue a health and fitness lifestyle, to enjoy the outdoors, and for the clean, beautiful air – and it’s what we promote to our friends and to the public. The pollution that harms the park also degrades the air quality in the communities like Luray where we live.

I became aware of poor air quality when I noticed that sometimes exercise takes more time for me and for others. On a clear day on top of Old Rag – one of the most popular climbing destinations in Shenandoah National Park – I could see almost to the curve of the earth. But on a day with hazy pollution, I couldn’t see very far. I wondered: what happened?

I became curious about where the pollution originates. I’ve read about the pollution from power plants in the region, and understand that pollution from power plants as far away as Pennsylvania and Ohio can darken our Shenandoah skies.

A key federal clean air program called the “regional haze rule” aims to restore naturally clean air to our national parks, but flaws in this rule undermine our ability to reach that goal. Fortunately, the Obama administration has proposed critical revisions to this policy and now seeks to hold all states accountable for reducing pollution that degrades air in our national parks, regardless of whether the park lies within that state’s borders. The changes would also require states to back up their plans to reduce park pollution – as a teacher might advise a student, states must “show their work.”

Despite these positive steps, the Obama administration’s proposal also could allow states almost another decade to avoid cleaning up, and weaken EPA’s and the public’s ability to hold states and polluters accountable for their pollution.

I urge the Obama administration to act swiftly in the coming weeks to finalize the proposed changes that strengthen the regional haze rule, and reject efforts to weaken protections for clean air for parks and people.

Our national parks are among our country’s greatest achievements. As I trace the footsteps of Secretary Jewell and Administrator McCarthy to Shenandoah’s Hawksbill Summit and look towards the parks’ second century, I hope President Obama will consider our children and the generations to come.

Will future Americans breathe deeply of fresh mountain air? See views stretching more than 100 miles? President Obama, and his two mountain-climbing staff, can put parks on the right path to cleaner air – for our families’ health, and for our national parks.

Darryl Haley, of Luray, Va., hosts “Fitness Friday” on WHUR 96.3 FM and Sirius radio. He was the first person weighing over 300 pounds to complete an Ironman Competition, and played six seasons in the NFL.

The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill.