The STAR program came out of pressure from citizens to reduce the area's high levels of hazardous air pollutants. In 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ranked Jefferson County, where Louisville is located, as the locale with the greatest health risks from hazardous air pollutants in the Southeast. EPA air monitors found levels of the 18 hazardous air pollutants now covered by the STAR program in excess of federal air quality standards.

But now Louisville's very ability to control local air quality is at risk. Earlier this month, Kentucky Sen. Dan Seum (R), who represents Jefferson County, introduced SB 39 that would have killed the STAR program by prohibiting any locality from adopting regulations more stringent than state or federal regulations. Seum argued that the STAR program would cost Kentucky jobs.

On Feb. 27 the Kentucky state senate passed an amended version of SB 39, which dropped the local preemption provision, but included a requirement that a three-fifths supermajority of the Louisville Metro Council approve the STAR program before the program could take effect. The bill, which had Seum's support and passed the state senate 27-10, had been sent to the state house.

The Kentucky House of Representatives, however, passed a major re-write of SB 39, March 14, that requires the Louisville Air Pollution Control Board to submit a cost/benefit analysis of the STAR program to the Louisville Metro Council by Nov. 30. The council would then have one month to submit "recommendations for modifications." The House bill, which passed 95-1, leaves the STAR program temporarily intact, but still creates the possibility that the program could be weakened.

The disparate House and Senate bills now head to a conference committee, where lawmakers will attempt to work out the differences.

Local environmental organizations, like Rubbertown Emergency Action (REACT) see the STAR program as an important step towards cleaner air and a healthier environment in Louisville. REACT member Eboni Cochrane explains, "The problem is there are only minimum standards at the federal level and they don't protect us from chemicals coming from the facilities located in Rubbertown."

STAR also demonstrates the importance of monitoring data and government-held toxic release data, to diagnosis environmental problems. According to Tim Duncan, also with REACT, "Without the air monitoring, and citizen access to that data, industries could have kept saying there is not a problem, and we would not have been able to push the city to deal with the industrial sources of our air pollution problems."