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Don´t Believe Industry
Hit on EPA´s Clean Air Standards Roll Call
By Rep. Henry Waxman Stafford's warning cuts to the heart of the current attack against the Environmental Protection Agency's proposals to protect the public from ozone and particulate air pollution. As most Members of Congress are now aware, the nation's biggest polluters have pooled their resources to form the Air Quality Standards Coalition to block the EPA. But this multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign isn't just about the agency's new proposals. Its ultimate goal is to destroy the Clean Air Act's fundamental underpinning by eliminating health-based standards. Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must ensure that the current health-based air quality standards reflect the best scientific information available. This has been the law for more than 25 years. In carrying out this mandate, the EPA recently completed an analysis of thousands of studies on ozone and particulate air pollution. Based on its study, the agency concluded that new scientific information requires stronger protections of public health. Specifically, the EPA has proposed to change the form and level of ozone standard from 0.12 parts per million (ppm) measured over one hour to 0.08 ppm measured over eight hours. This standard would better protect asthmatic children, while creating a more stable standard so that areas don't slip in and out of compliance. For particulate matter, the EPA has proposed establishing a new standard for fine particulate matter (particulate matter 2.5 micron in size and smaller). This standard would focus on the tiny particles resulting from burning fuel -- the most harmful type of particulate air pollution. The EPA's scientific basis and staff work has been reviewed extensively by a group of independent scientific advisers called the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). Often lost in the inflamed Congressional rhetoric about the new EPA proposal is the most essential point: CASAC's members agreed that the EPA did its scientific homework for both standards. CASAC concluded that the EPA had an "adequate scientific basis for regulatory decisions." In fact, EPA Administrator Carol Browner recently testified that "this has been the most extensive scientific review and public outreach ever conducted by the EPA for public health standards." Each of the 5,000 studies the EPA reviewed had already been peer-reviewed and published in scientific and medical journals. There is also strong international support for tougher air pollution standards. Britain, Canada, and the World Health Organization have all recognized the serious health implications of fine particulate matter air pollution. As for ozone, Canada's standard and the World Health Organization's recognized standard is 0.06 ppm. The EPA's proposed fine particulate matter standard would prevent 15,000 premature deaths a year. The new ozone standard would reduce hospital admissions by 1,600 admissions and reduce emergency room visits by 5,000 each year. It will reduce serious respiratory problems in children by 250,000 cases each year. Industry ignores these facts and has instead issued perennial warnings of impending doom if tighter standards are adopted -- we are told that family barbecues, lawnmowers, and Fourth of July fireworks will only be memories if the EPA moves forward. Industry has also tossed charges of bias and bad science into the mix and gives every sign that it wants to refight the battle on health-based standards if waged and lost years ago. When the effort to reauthorize the Clean Air Act began in 1981, few of us anticipated that it would last for nine years and culminate in the 1990 Clean Air Act. The battle to retain health-based standards was fought early and hard. At the outset, industry rallied the cry for repeal of the Clean Air Act's health-based standards and to replace them with standards based on industry's cost projections. The response was instructive. President Ronald Reagan, Members of Congress, environmental groups, states and localities, and even some industries ultimately chose to favor health-based standards. By the end of 1981, any hope the industry had for a cost-based approach faded, and the 1990 Clean Air Act ultimately retained health-based standards. Looking back, it's obvious that if we had adopted an approach based on cost projections -- especially industry cost projections -- we would have crippled the progress we have made in cleaning the air. For instance, in 1979 -- the last time the EPA set a standard for smog -- the American Petroleum Institute predicted that "extreme social and economic disruption" would follow and that "impossible" controls would be imposed across the country. General Motors warned Congress of "widespread inflation and employee layoffs." The EPA adopted the rule and industry's gloomy predictions proved to be wrong. As Congress considered the 1990 Clean Air Act, every affected industry weighed in. The auto industry flatly stated that tougher tailpipe requirements would be impossible to meet. Mobil predicted that cleaner gasoline standards would result in major supply disruptions and dramatic price increases. And DuPont reprised the always apt "economic and social disruptions" warning in lobbying against a phase-out of ozone-depleting substances. The utility industry joined in, predicting that acid rain controls would cost $1,500 per ton of cleanup, and industry's main trade group estimated the entire law would cost nearly $100 billion a year. Our clean air program would have been thrown into gridlock if these exaggerated claims had dictated the law. In reality, since enactment of the 1990 law, cleaner cars have been manufactured ahead of schedule, cleaner gasoline has been introduced to the market without price or supply problems, DuPont invented new substances (ahead of the law's schedule) that don't harm the ozone layer, and acid rain is being cleaned up at prices 94 percent under utility estimates. Overall, the 1990 law is costing approximately $22 billion, or just 25 percent of what the industry predicted. Indeed, health-based standards are a primary that the Clean Air Act is one of the most effective governmental initiatives of this century. Not only have major air pollutants decreased nationally by 30 percent over the past 25 years, but during the same period our gross domestic product increased almost 100 percent, population rose by 28 percent, and vehicle miles traveled increased 116 percent. The Clean Air Act works because while the standards are based solely on health considerations, costs are explicitly considered in establishing compliance schedules and choosing clean-up options. That means we have a clear sense of what is needed and a common-sense plan to achieve it. The current health standards are outdated and are no longer supported by modern science. We know that tens of thousands of people are dying and hundreds of thousands more suffer from illnesses caused by commonly found levels of particulate matter and ozone in the air at levels that are currently mislabeled as "safe." Congress has a responsibility to make sure we don't accept industry arguments at face value. We need to scrutinize them in light of industry's wildly inaccurate previous projections and the overwhelming scientific evidence the EPA has compiled in support of its new standard. What that is done, it's clear that instead of weakening the act or blocking the EPA's work, Congress should be working to help public health experts get on with the job of making sure every American -- no matter how old or young, healthy or sure -- breathes safe air. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is a member of the Commerce subcommittee on health and environment. |
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