As West Virginians look to community air monitoring programs to screen for pollutants, lawmakers advanced a measure that could limit the use of the data collected by the programs.
The House Energy and Manufacturing Committee moved forward with HB 5018, an industry-backed bill that would prevent the state Department of Environmental Protection from using data collected by community air monitoring programs to support regulation or enforcement. These programs measure air quality in communities often disproportionately affected by pollutants.
The bill is intended to make sure “we’re all on a level playing field, that everybody’s providing quality, controlled data to the DEP,” said David Yaussy, counsel for the West Virginia Manufacturers Association. Yaussy worked on the bill.
DEP General Counsel Jason Wandling told lawmakers the agency was agnostic on the bill, and it wouldn’t change their procedures.
“No matter if this bill passes or dies this session, anyone who comes to the DEP and says we’ve got a problem here with our air, we’re going to send an inspector and we’ll help them out,” Wandling told the committee during his testimony.
But the bill does put language into state law that explicitly allows the DEP to only consider community air data when the monitor is used in line with all of the manufacturer’s standards, as well as standards set by the federal and state guidelines. In an emailed alert, a coalition of West Virginia’s environmental groups warned it could have a “chilling effect” on citizen efforts.
The bill would also prevent community air monitoring data from being admissible in a court proceeding, which raised a constitutional concern during the committee hearing.
“This seems like there’s a huge constitutional issue about the evaluation of evidence and the presentation of evidence,” said Del. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha. The bill would require the courts to automatically exclude any data collected by community air monitoring programs.
Next, the bill will be considered by the full House of Delegates.