Filed under: Clean Air
On Thursday September 21, 2006 the US government passed new air pollution standards in order to provide “cleaner air to all Americans.”
Health and environmental groups are saying that even the revised standards are too low, in particular to prevent lung disease and “other pollution-related ailments.”
According to Stephen Johnson, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the premature deaths, heart attacks, and hospital stays for people suffering from heart and lung disease will all be decreased because of the new standards. As well, Johnson said that health benefits will be increased to a value of between $20 billion and $160 billion per year.
Before Thursday, the old standardss required that no more than 65 micrograms of soot particles per cubic meter of air be released. Now the law states that no more than 35 micrograms be released.
Many helath groups and organizations are not pleased with the new standards. The American Medical Association, American Lung Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Academy of pediatrics all wanted the standard to be tougher. These groups believe that the EPA’s standards are not protecting Americans well enough because this particle pollution can cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, and premature death due to heart and lung ailments. The fine particles that are causing these helth problems are from the exhausts of power plant, cars, and factories.
On the other side of the argument are the US electric utility companies. They complain that the EPA has not given a fair chance for the old standards to work. In order to meet these new standards, the companies would have to put out and estimated of $20 billion and $60 billion per year.
States must meet these standards by the year 2015.
I think that it is a really good idea that the standards were raised. It is so sad that people are getting sick and/or dying from something that they have no control over. The people that are in charge at these major companies should take a look at how they would feel if they got sick from air pollution. Sure they have a lot of money now, but would that really matter if they weren’t here to enjoy it? Not only is if affecting people now, but it will probably affect people in the future and, as most things are, it is affecting our environment in a negative way.
<a href=”http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=06A50E3F66DB4A334202D3ADFD31C589&ref=sciam&chanID=sa012″>Scientific American: New air pollution rules rankle health groups</a>
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6119298 EPA Unveils Tighter Rules on Particles in Air By: Elizabeth Shogren
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“health benefits will be increased to a value of between $20 billion and $160 billion per year”
Comment by mikeporter September 23, 2006 @ 6:29 am20 to 160 sounds like a pretty crazy difference to me. Makes me wonder how the rest of that guy’s numbers are. Hopefully they’re nothing like “We see a 100-0 percent drop in resperatory disease related deaths…”.
This topic always gets to me, because it is true that millions of people die due to environmental factors introduced by humans, but that the individual has no control over. On one level, that can be seen as murder, one human’s actions contributing to the death of amother. But we’d all be guilty then, because each of us has supported the use of fossil fuels, despite knowledge of their dangerous emissions. In that way, we are all guilty for the state of the earth. Everyone contributes.
It upsets me that companies are putting monetary values on human health, by complaining about the costs they will have to face now. Even on a purely business plane, the toxins coming from their plants are harming potential customers. Not that the loss of one or two people would harm someone like Exxon Mobile, but if conditions were to worsen in the name of profit, then certainly companies would feel the repercussions of their money-lust. Let’s hope it never gets to that.
Every time the standards are raised, the future looks a little better, but someone gives you a reason to doubt. Le sigh, humanity, le sigh.