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Last Updated: Jun 30, 2008 - 11:14:37 AM |
22 Sep, (foodconsumer.org) - The Environmental Protection Agency tightened the air pollution standards yesterday, but health groups were not satisfied with the marginal increase in the amount of soot permissible in the air. The EPA ignored the recommendations of its own scientists in fixing the upper limit of soot in the air.
Soot is linked to heart and lung disease as well as childhood asthma. For once the new rules appeared to rile both sides of the environmental debate. Public health experts feel the rules are not tight enough, while industry officials called them stringent.
The short-term daily standard of soot exposure was cut nearly in half by the EPA, but the long-term annual standard that denotes chronic exposure to soot remained set at 1997 levels. Scientists said that chronic exposure to soot is linked to a variety of health problems.
This is because the soot particles, which measure less than one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair, have the ability to penetrate deep into the lungs and the circulatory system. Researchers say that these particles are implicated in tens of thousands of deaths annually. The data includes deaths attributed to respiratory as well as coronary disease.
According to the EPA's new standards the amount of fine particulate matter that Americans may be exposed to per day was cut from 65 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 35 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Health experts have no problems with this rule.
However the decision to leave the annual limit for "fine particulate matter," unchanged at an average of 15 micrograms per cubic meter per day over the course of a year has angered experts.
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said that the new rules were strict enough. "Today EPA is delivering the most health-protective national air standards in our nation's history," he told reporters. "All Americans deserve to breathe cleaner air, and through these more protective standards, that's exactly what we're delivering today."
In a near-unanimous vote last year, the EPA's scientific advisory panel recommended reducing the annual amount of soot Americans breathe, from a daily average of 15 micrograms per cubic meter to 13 or 14 micrograms.
However William L. Wehrum, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, observed that the panel had concluded that the current standard "is in fact adequate to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety, and there isn't sufficient evidence to justify a tightening of that standard."
Under the Clean Air act, the EPA is to revise the air standards every five years. But this is the first time in nearly a decade that the air quality standards are revised. the first set of standards were established in 1997, but were not reviewed since.
A court ordered the EPA to revise the standards by September 27. But in framing the new standards for soot or fine particulate matter, the EPA seems to have provoked everybody. Soot is mainly emitted from power plants, heavy industry and vehicle tailpipes and tires. The medical, environmental as well as industry groups were keenly awaiting which way the EPA would swing.
Doctors say that the fallout from such low standards is bound to increase the number of cases with pulmonary disease. John E. Heffner, M.D., president of the American Thoracic Society, said that the science behind the need to reduce soot exposure was very clear.
"People develop respiratory disorders and those with existing lung, heart, and other chronic diseases die prematurely because they are exposed to these microscopic pollutants at levels well below those set by the EPA," he added.
John L. Kirkwood, president and CEO of the American Lung Association agreed with Dr Heffner. "Overwhelming evidence shows that millions of people suffer unnecessarily, even face an earlier death, because they breathe this pollution. EPA could have, should have done better."
A study published yesterday in the online edition of Occupational and Environmental Medicine linked high levels of particulate matter to increased risk of stroke. The study by Japanese researchers claimed that inhaling high levels of particulate matter increased the risk of a hemorrhagic stroke in the next two hours for older adults.
The American Lung Association, American Medical Association and other public health groups also disagreed with the current standards set by the EPA. "Thousands of studies -- most funded by EPA itself -- unmistakably demonstrate that particulate matter is a dangerous air pollutant, endangering life and health at levels well below those announced by EPA," Dr Kirkwood said.
The Edison Electric Institute, a powerful industry group that represents investor-owned power plants that generate about 60 percent of the country’s electricity, said the new standards were far too strict.
“E.P.A. persists in overemphasizing studies that suggest a possible benefit to tightening the air quality standard, ’’ Dan Reidinger, an Edison spokesman said, “while downplaying those suggesting that doing so may not provide the health benefits E.P.A. is seeking to achieve.”
Whatever the complaints of both sides, the new standards must be implemented by all states by 2015, with a possible extension to 2020.
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