Clean Air News

Local Citizens and Advocates Call on Administration to Heed Science, Protect Public Health

San Francisco, CA-At an EPA hearing in San Francisco today, residents and public health advocates sharply criticized the Bush administration's proposed air quality standards for fine particle, or "soot," pollution and called on the administration to substantially strengthen the fine particle standards.  The administration issued the proposal in December, disregarding the recommendations of its own scientific advisers and EPA staff scientists.

"This proposal overturns basic principles of the Clean Air Act, and fails to protect the public health.  The proposal especially fails to protect the millions of people who are the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of air pollution and is simply wrong," said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.

"It is unprecedented for the EPA to ignore a recommendation from its own science advisers, especially since setting a new particle standard is one of the most important public health decisions that EPA will make this decade.

The state of scientific knowledge on this issue is clear. Particle pollution can be deadly and much stronger standards are needed to protect public health", said Dr. John Balmes of the American Lung Association of California and the American Thoracic Society.

Witnesses lined up to testify at the hearing today from 9 in the morning till 9:00 at night.  Health experts, representatives from the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, the San Joaquin Air Quality Coalition, the Bay Area Clean Air Task Force, elected officials, environmental groups, community members, and religious leaders, all came to San Francisco to express their concern over EPA's controversial proposed standard.  Public health advocates described the devastating health effects of fine particle exposure and highlighted the consensus in the medical and scientific communities on the need to substantially strengthen the health-based air quality standards for fine particle pollution.  Hearings on the administration's proposal were also held today in Chicago and Philadelphia.

"I am concerned about the health impacts of air pollution on my family in the Central Valley of California, one of the most polluted areas of the country," said Carolina Simunovic of Fresno Metro Ministry. "By ignoring the best available science and giving breaks to polluters, the EPA is turning its back on the very families it is mandated to protect. This kind of thing really undermines peoples' faith in their government."

"With these proposed standards, the Environmental Protection Agency has turned good science into bad policy," said Dr. John Balbus, Environmental Defense health program director. "It is unacceptable that EPA's action would allow serious harm from particulate pollution, especially for children, people with heart and lung disease, and families in rural communities."

"Soot pollution is both deadly and pervasive," said Moira Chapin, Federal Field Organizer with Environment California.  "The Bush administration's proposal ignores the scientific consensus on the need for much stronger standards at the expense of public health."

Fine particles are the nation's deadliest air pollutant, and cause tens of thousands of premature deaths every year.  They can bypass the body's natural defenses, such as coughing and sneezing, and lodge deep in the lungs or even pass into the bloodstream, causing serious respiratory and cardiovascular problems, such as asthma attacks, heart attacks, lung cancer, and strokes.

Fine particles emanate from combustion sources such as diesel engines, industrial and agricultural sources, wood burning and power plants.

According to a recent Environment California report, "Plagued by Pollution", in 2004 fine particle levels exceeded national air quality standards for soot pollution in nearly half the states, including California, which ranked 1st in the nation for the worst annual soot pollution.  Los Angeles and Riverside exceeded the annual standard, meaning that they were polluted year-round.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must set air quality standards at levels that protect public health, including sensitive populations, with an adequate margin of safety.  The agency must also review air quality standards every five years to ensure that they reflect the latest scientific knowledge and update the standards as needed.

The current fine particle standards, set in 1997, include an annual standard of 15 micrograms per cubic meter (15 g/m3) and a daily standard of 65 g/m3. 

The annual standard is based on how much fine particle pollution is safe to breathe on a regular basis, while the daily standard is based on how much fine particle pollution is safe to breathe on any one given day.

In 2005, following an extensive scientific review, both the Bush administration's independent science advisers and the EPA's staff scientists concluded that the current fine particle standards are too weak to protect public health.  As a result, they recommended strengthening the standards.

More than 2,000 peer-reviewed studies in the past several years have confirmed the damaging health effects of exposure to fine particles and many shown such adverse effects even at levels well below the current standards.

In December, the Bush administration rejected the recommendations of its advisers and staff scientists.  Specifically, the administration rejected lowering the annual standard and proposed only a limited reduction in the daily standard-from 65 g/m3 to 35 g/m3-that Chapin says would have little impact on public health.  This only protects 65 million people out of the 165 living in areas with particle pollution at levels that adversely affect public health. It is unprecedented for an administration to disregard the recommendations of the independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

Reports show that the White House made dozens of changes to EPA's draft rule before it was made public.  Many of the changes softened or removed entirely assertions of harm from pollution.  For instance, the White House removed a sentence stating that the air quality rules "may have a substantial impact on the life expectancy of the U.S. population."

The electric power industry and other influential interests that would be affected by stronger fine particle standards and other pollution controls have lobbied heavily against further limits on pollution.  By contrast, the medical and public health communities have endorsed the strongest standards recommended by the EPA's staff scientists: 12 g/m3 for the annual standard and 25 g/m3 for the daily standard.

"Air quality standards are the foundation for reducing air pollution nationwide, making the administration's decision one of the most important it will face on air pollution", according to Chapin.  "Once again the administration is putting politics above science and the law," Chapin continued.  "But it's not too late for the administration to change course to fight this proven killer."