These concerns, although secondary to health issues, are also considered when drafting NOx reduction policies.
Houston-Galveston NOx Emissions.
Currently, the regional State Implementation Plan (SIP) requires industries to lower their NOx emissions by 90%. Industries have lobbied the TNRCC heavily to reduce their NOx standard to an 80% reduction, with the condition that they would lower VOCs by 80% to meet the ozone standard. Industries offer this alternative as a more economically viable option to reduce ozone, and such a revision to the SIP is being considered. John Wilson, executive director of the Galveston-Houston Association for Smog Prevention (GHASP), disagrees with the industry position: "If the science was there to support this, we would have no issue with it . . .What they"re doing is setting policy and then trying to see if the science fits." A serious problem is with ozone is how much VOCs need to be cut to reach the standard. Since VOCs have been underrepresented in the past, skeptics abound as to whether future monitoring and compliance will be realized. Industries can no longer blame vegetation for the ozone problem and are recognizing that they are the bulk of the problem. If industries can prove ozone reductions through their proposals, the SIP will be revised. If not, they must comply with the SIP as is.
In the Houston-Galveston region, NOx reductions are the key to removing ozone, even though VOC reductions will also help. Recent flyovers by the Texas Air Quality Study indicate that VOCs stemming from the industrial ship channel have been undercounted for years. The recent VOC data adds to mounting NOx evidence that the Houston ship channel is the greatest source of ozone in the area. On a statewide scale, it would take approximately 18 million automobiles to equal the emission output of the "twelve hundred plus grandfathered manufacturing-petrochemical plants in Texas.