Environmental Defense Praises Expansion Of Clean Air Partners

Environmental Defense today praised the Austin Idea Network and Austin Chamber of Commerce for joining the Austin Clean Air Partners program. The program was initiated by Mayor Watson in 1998 and was initially designed by the Clean Air Force and Environmental Defense.

The program contains a number of cutting-edge ideas including:
- commitments to reduce emissions by a quantified amount;
- commitments by businesses to be responsible for not only emissions from their plant or company owned vehicles, but also the indirect emissions associated with their operations, such as the emissions related to employee commutes;
- the use of strategies that not only reduce ozone, but also simultaneously alleviate other environmental and community problems, such as the emission of greenhouse gases and traffic congestion at no additional costs;
- employer provided incentives and benefits to employees to reduce single occupancy commuter vehicles that cost businesses little or nothing to implement.

“There is one area where the program needs improvement and that is with regard to public accountability,” said Jim Marston, director of the Texas Office of Environmental Defense. “Transparency about how the claimed pollution reductions are achieved will lend the program greater creditability with the public.”

Environmental Defense will assume the role of assuring public accountability of the Clean Air Partners project. Every six months we will ask each of the Clean Air Partners to disclose which strategies they are implementing as part of the program and the success of each. We will compile and analyze that data and publicize which strategies are working most successfully on our website and elsewhere. We will delineate which Clean Air Partners are willing to disclose the information necessary for the public to be confident of the validity of their claimed emission reductions and are deserving of public recognition and acclaim.