Doug Scott, Illinois EPA Director
Doug Scott was appointed Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) effective July 1, 2005 by Governor Rod R. Blagojevich. Prior to his appointment to IEPA, Scott served as mayor of the City of Rockford, Illinois, a state representative, and as Rockford City Attorney.

At IEPA, Scott oversees the state’s clean air and water programs, the brownfields program, and many others. His agency is implementing the governor’s mercury proposal described on page one of this newsletter.

What do you see as the main environmental challenges facing our state?

There are several, but I’ll start with the good news: if you compare today with where we were with air and water quality and landfills back when the agency started in 1970, there’s no question that we’ve made tremendous progress. 2004 was the first year when we had no air pollution alert days. That’s good thing, and it’s in spite of the fact that we’ve got more people and more cars. But there is still a lot of work left. The biggest environmental challenge facing Illinois is air quality. We’re dealing with mercury now, but we’ve got major challenges with other power plant emissions: nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter. Illinois also has substantial issues with water quality. Many more streams are rated as good today than years ago, but there is more that we need to do on issues like runoff and erosion.

How, ultimately, will these big problems be addressed?

Illinois is going to do what we must to meet all of the air quality standards. We’re going beyond the federal standard on mercury emissions and we ought to do the same for the other pollutants. We’re making sure we’re testing cars and retrofitting school buses and pushing ethanol. Literally there are dozens of things that are going on at IEPA that deal with cleaning the air. And it’s also really important that we deal with these issues on a regional and national basis.

It seems like federal leadership on the environment is absent these days and that and it’s up to states to take the lead. What do you think?

I think it’s both. In two out of three issues, we completely agree with the federal government. For example, it provides tremendous amounts of money for us to install sewers and to fix drinking water systems, and that’s all good stuff. We differ on things like air policy, where clearly the federal interpretation of what should happen with regard to mercury and other pollutants is very different from ours and many other states’.

A major problem is when the federal government delegates tasks to the states and doesn’t fund them. You’re going to see a lot of states screaming about the current proposed federal budget. There are some big cuts in certain areas that will make it difficult for us to do our jobs.

If Illinois adopts the governor’s mercury rule, will other states be more likely to do so?

Yes, definitely. It is significant that Illinois is a Midwestern state that relies heavily on coal-fired power plants, not only to supply our own power, but also to export power. I have talked with my counterparts in a few states I know that our doing this here is providing impetus for them to do the same.