document: Has Emissions Cap and Trade Created Toxic Hotspots ? A New Study Says No Despite concerns that date back to the early days of emissions trading , a U.S. EPA program that lets coal-fired power plants buy and sell the right to pollute has n't hit poor people and minorities with dirtier air than everyone else , according to a new study -LRB- pdf -RRB- . Long before greens rallied around cap and trade as their preferred way to slow global warming , many of them raised doubts about Congress ' plan to let companies swap allowances for the emissions that form acid rain . Environmental justice advocates worried that the free market could lead to toxic '' `` hotspots , '' '' cutting pollution overall but concentrating the rest of it in vulnerable areas . Over the first 15 years of U.S. EPA 's Acid Rain Program , the opposite has occurred , says Evan Ringquist , a professor at Indiana University 's School of Public and Environmental Affairs . Past research shows that poor people and minorities are more likely to live in places with dirty air . But under the trading program , industrial plants in those neighborhoods bought fewer licenses to pollute , according to Ringquist 's new study , which will appear in the upcoming issue of Social Science Quarterly . Market-based programs have generally been more efficient than command-and-control rules , and the new study adds to the evidence that those savings do not come at the cost of greater inequality , Ringquist said . '' `` In general , the research shows that most of the early fears have n't come to pass , '' '' he told Greenwire . Emissions that lead to acid rain have fallen across the board since EPA started trading programs for sulfur dioxide -LRB- SO2 -RRB- and nitrogen oxides -LRB- NOx -RRB- under the Clean Air Act . Data released by the agency last week show that the coal plants in the programs released 5.11 million tons of SO2 and 2.05 million tons of NOx last year - down 67.5 percent and 69.2 percent , respectively , from 1990 levels . Both types of pollution are also linked to health problems . When released into the air , SO2 forms fine soot that is linked to breathing problems , heart attacks and death , while NOx is one of the chemicals that typically causes smog problems in urban areas . Since trading began , some critics have predicted that minority neighborhoods would see fewer health benefits today because nearby companies would buy pollution credits rather than add equipment to control their emissions . In a 1999 article , several legal scholars decried Southern California 's trading program for SO2 and NOx as a '' `` failed experiment '' '' for that reason . '' `` Pollution trading in Los Angeles has led to concentrated toxic air emission hotspots that have shackled low-income and minority communities with the region 's air pollution , '' '' they wrote in the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum . But the new study says the nationwide trading program may have narrowed the pollution gap between whites and minorities , especially Latinos . It adds to the findings of groups such as the Environmental Law Institute , Environmental Defense Fund and Resources for the Future , all of which looked at the trading program about a decade ago and concluded it was not causing hotspots . Based on an empirical analysis of all swaps that took place between January 1995 and March 2009 , Ringquist found that for every 10 percent increase in the percentage of Hispanic households in a certain ZIP code , there was a 4.1 percent decrease in the chance that a nearby facility would buy more SO2 allowances than it sold . If the proportion of black households within a mile of an industrial plant increased by 10 percent , the facility was 0.8 percent less likely to be an '' `` importer '' '' of pollution credits . '' `` If there is an equity effect from allowance trading in this model , it works to the advantage of communities of color , '' '' the study says . Still , a trading program does not require the air to be equally clean in all areas . Industrial plants bought more credits than they sold in places where large percentages of people did not finish high school , Ringquist found . Surprisingly , the same was true in areas where homeowners - rather than renters - made up a larger share of the population . Wider implications Though the acid rain program has been widely touted as a success and embraced by most environmental groups , concerns about toxic - and discriminatory - hotspots have lingered as policymakers have debated ways to cut pollution . The fear of hotspots was often raised by critics as the George W. Bush administration tried to take a market-based approach to mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants . In 2005 , before the Clean Air Mercury Rule was thrown out in federal court , EPA 's inspector general released a report saying that the agency had not done enough to ensure that the emissions trading plan would not lead to mercury hotspots -LRB- E&EN ews PM , May 5 , 2005 -RRB- . And while there is no worry about local emissions of carbon dioxide , because it is n't toxic , the idea that trading programs will lead to hotspots has regardless been raised as governments have tried to limit the greenhouse gases that are linked to climate change . When the state of California 's cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide was stalled in court last week , it was because of a challenge from local activists , who say the trading program will have the side effect of exposing their neighborhoods to other types of toxic pollution . San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith ruled that the Air Resources Board had not given enough attention to the idea of putting a tax on every ton of carbon released into the air . Neither option would guarantee cleaner air in Wilmington , Calif. , a city with three refineries nearby and a population that is about 87 percent Latino , said Jesse Marquez , executive director of Coalition for a Safe Environment . '' `` Even if you put in a tax , a tax still allows refiners to continue polluting , '' '' Marquez said . '' `` They 'll just spend millions to offset their pollution . The only way to offset refiner pollution is to eliminate refiner pollution '' '' -LRB- Greenwire , March 24 -RRB- . If the new analysis of the acid rain programs are any indication , there is n't necessarily a tension between efficiency and fairness , said Michael Livermore , a law professor at New York University and executive director of the school 's Institute for Policy Integrity . That is promising for market-based efforts , but it is not a guarantee that future cap-and-trade systems will turn out the same way , he said . '' `` We do n't need to trust in our luck , '' '' Livermore said . '' `` We can design our programs to reduce the risk of hotspots . '' '' Click here -LRB- pdf -RRB- to read the study . Copyright 2011 E&E Publishing . All Rights Reserved . For more news on energy and the environment , visit www.greenwire.com . Greenwire is published by Environment & Energy Publishing . Read More '' ''
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abstractive_keyphrases: congress' percent respectively ringquist's environmental law institute san francisco county superior court judge breathing problems heart attacks pollution gap trade created toxic hotspots