Photos of the US before the EPA

Green Car Reports has a series of photos reminding us why the EPA was created in the first place. 

That is the George Washington Bridge below - if you can't tell. 

1970s Los Angeles smog

[Green Car Reports]

Next Step: Existing Electric Power Plants

Electric power plants spew about 40 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution in the United States, but, amazingly, there are no federal limits on utility emissions of this potent greenhouse gas. The Obama administration plans to remedy this situation by drafting rules that would curtail these discharges from existing plants. The president should make sure they are tough. Nothing he can do will cut greenhouse gases more.

To achieve these reductions, the rules should favor making homes, buildings and power plants more energy efficient over the more costly conversion of coal-fired plants to natural gas. Expanding energy efficiency will reduce electricity demand and eliminate the need for the coal plants. Closing them is better than converting them to gas.

[NY Times Op-Ed]

If we want clean air, we need to reduce soot

Soot is the mix of tiny particles that comes out of coal plant smokestacks, diesel engines, vehicle tailpipes, and oil refineries. It is a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, and it's  harmful to the health of our children. 

New standards for allowable levels of soot in the air are on track to be finalized by EPA on December 14. Please join Moms Clean Air Force in urging EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson to finalize a strong soot standard. Here are three reasons to sign our petition today.

• Soot is tiny. Soot is made up of particles that are smaller than a speck of dust, and less than 1/30^th the width of a human hair. Their small size means that they are especially harmful. They penetrate deeply into the lungs, and can't be expelled through coughing. They also easily enter the bloodstream.

• Soot harms babies and children. Exposure to soot is linked to increases in infant mortality, premature birth, and low birth weight. It also exacerbates asthma in children and interferes with lung development.

• Our Bodies, Our Economy. Among adults, soot exposure has been linked to premature death, heart attacks, emergency room visits, acute bronchitis, and asthma attacks. The new soot standard would prevent enough adverse health outcomes to save our economy $5.9 billion each year, according to the EPA.

Join Mom's Clean Air Force

It's time for moms to roar! Join Julianne and the Moms Clean Air Force:‪
http://www.momscleanairforce.org/roar‬

70 million people at risk of lung cancer

Currently, 70 million Americans live in areas that are in violation of the health standards set by EPA. That's 70 million people routinely exposed to fine particles at levels that the EPA deems unsafe.

What are the resulting health effects?

According to the EPA, PM 2.5 causes irritation of the airways, coughing, and difficulty breathing, decreased lung function, aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis, irregular heartbeat, nonfatal heart attacks, and premature death in people with heart or lung disease.

Now we can add lung cancer to that terrible list of environmental effects of air pollution.

A study published last month in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine examined the relationship between long-term fine particle pollution and deaths from lung cancer in 188,000 Americans.

The researchers, led by Michelle Turner of the University of Ottawa, followed their study subjects for 26 years, from 1982 to 2008. They found that PM 2.5 exposure, as measured by air monitoring systems, was significantly correlated with deaths from lung cancer. Turner and her colleagues are fairly certain that these lung cancers were not caused by cigarette smoking, a potent carcinogen and a common confounder in cancer studies, because they studied only those people who had never smoked.

EPA said this week that it needed more time to finish drafting new standards for fine particles from power plants. The agency is required by the Clean Air Act to set science-based standards every five years. It missed its October 2011 deadline and indicated in a court filing last week that the new standards would not be finalized until June, 2013. It's a disappointing delay.


Here's what you can do to help reduce your family's exposure to fine particle pollution:


Know your air. Find out whether the air you breathe is persistently polluted with fine particles here. Also, you can find out what is the quality of the air you are breathing right now at AirNow, a government website that provides real time air quality mapping.


Avoid exercising outdoors in air that is high in fine particle pollution. Don't let your kids exercise outside on such days either. Vigorous exercise brings more of the fine particles deep into the lungs.


Use less electricity. Power plants are one of the largest pollution sources in the US.


Drive less. Cars increase air pollution, including fine particle pollution.


Don't burn wood or trash. Such fires are a large source of fine particle pollution.


Clean up your school system's school buses. Old diesel buses can be a significant source of particle pollution. Make sure your school system is retrofitting old buses and has a strong anti-idling policy.

The Mercury Moment: Choose Health

by Michael Bloomberg 

Over the next few days, the Obama administration will decide whether to address a major public health challenge facing the country: the large amount of mercury that continually pours out of coal-fired power plants, contaminating our air and drinking water.

Every year, mercury from coal-fired power plants is responsible for thousands of premature deaths, heart attacks, and serious respiratory illnesses. In addition, mercury is one of the leading causes of preventable birth defects.

Today, because of mercury, a baby may be born with brain damage or cerebral palsy. An infant may begin developing asthma, which will mean missed school days, visits to the hospital, less physical exercise, and potentially a greater risk of diabetes. And a parent or grandparent may go to the hospital with a heart attack or severe bronchitis.

We can stop this. We can spare children this tragic injustice and the pain it brings their families. We can spare adults from losing years off their lives. And we can spare taxpayers the enormous health care costs that come with mercury-related-illnesses.

Coal-fired power plants are responsible for 70 percent of our nation's mercury emissions. After being released into the air we breathe, mercury -- a heavy metal -- also falls into our soil and water, where it can contaminate the food we eat, especially fish.

The EPA has proposed rules that would reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by 90%, preventing 12,200 emergency room visits and saving $80 billion a year in health care costs. The rules -- now sitting on the president's desk -- are two decades overdue.

In 1990, when the Clean Air Act was last revised, Congress directed the EPA to establish limits on mercury and other emissions of coal-fired power plants. In March, after 20 years of delay, the EPA has finally issued a set of draft rules. By Monday, the president will decide whether to adopt the draft rules, weaken them, or withdraw them entirely. It will be one of the defining tests of the administration's commitment to public health and environmental protection.

The big power companies have had years to improve mercury emissions controls, and a majority of coal-fired plants (54%) have already done so. The remaining coal-fired plants are generally old and inefficient, and should have been retired years ago. The owners of these plants have been promoting the idea that the EPA's rules will destroy the American economy and cause rolling blackouts. They won't. It's just a scare tactic. In fact, some of the leading voices in our nation's utility industry -- the businesses that run our power lines -- do not object to the EPA's proposed rules.

The utility industry knows that if plant owners decide it is not cost-effective to adopt mercury emission controls, those plants can be converted to cleaner-burning natural gas. That would create even more jobs and reduce costs for consumers, because natural gas plants are more efficient than coal plants. Many old plants have already undergone this transformation, and the American economy -- not to mention our public health -- is stronger for it.

Owners of mercury-emitting coal-fired plants also argue they need more time, as well as long-term exemptions for some plants. There will always be excuses for delay. But two decades is long enough for the American people to wait for mercury to be removed from the air we breathe.

Coal-fired power plants and the pollution they produce -- including mercury -- are the number one threat to our public health and the environment. That is why my foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, recently provided a $50 million grant to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, with the goal of retiring one-third of the nation's coal fleet by 2020. But the federal government must not wait another decade -- or another week -- to begin phasing out a pollutant that has harmed so many people's health.

This is not an issue of jobs versus the environment. It's an issue of the American people's public health versus a narrow special interest. And it is now up to the President to declare the winner.

http://www.mikebloomberg.com/index.cfm?objectid=3D1CD84B-C29C-7CA2-F34E765EBAA44389

Republicans' assault on our environmental laws must be stopped

by Lisa Jackson


Americans must once again stand up for their right to clean air and clean water.


Since the beginning of this year, Republicans in the House have averaged roughly a vote every day the chamber has been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our nation's environmental laws. They have picked up the pace recently — just last week they voted to stop the EPA's efforts to limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants from cement plants, boilers and incinerators — and it appears their campaign will continue for the foreseeable future.


Using the economy as cover, and repeating unfounded claims that "regulations kill jobs," they have pushed through an unprecedented rollback of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and our nation's waste-disposal laws, all of which have successfully protected our families for decades. We all remember "too big to fail"; this pseudo jobs plan to protect polluters might well be called "too dirty to fail."


The House has voted on provisions that, if they became law, would give big polluters a pass in complying with the standards that more than half of the power plants across the country already meet. The measures would indefinitely delay sensible upgrades to reduce air pollution from industrial boilers located in highly populated areas. And they would remove vital federal water protections, exposing treasured resources such as the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Erie, the Chesapeake Bay and the Los Angeles River to pollution.


How we respond to this assault on our environmental and public health protections will mean the difference between sickness and health — in some cases, life and death — for hundreds of thousands of citizens.


This is not hyperbole. The link between health issues and pollution is irrefutable. Mercury is a neurotoxin that affects brain development in unborn children and young people. Lead has similar effects in our bodies. Soot, composed of particles smaller across than a human hair, is formed when fuels are burned and is a direct cause of premature death. Nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds contribute to the ozone alert days when seniors, asthmatics and others with respiratory problems are at serious risk if they do nothing more dangerous than step outside and breathe the air.


"Too dirty to fail" tries to convince Americans that they must choose between their health and the economy, a choice that's been proved wrong for the four decades that the EPA has been in existence. No credible economist links our current economic crisis — or any economic crisis — to tough clean-air and clean-water standards.


A better approach is the president's call for federal agencies to ensure that regulations don't overburden American businesses. The EPA has already put that into effect by repealing or revising several unnecessary rules, while ensuring that essential health protections remain intact.


We can put Americans to work retrofitting outdated, dirty plants with updated pollution control technology. There are about 1,100 coal-fired units at about 500 power plants in this country. About half of these units are more than 40 years old, and about three-quarters of them are more than 30 years old. Of these 1,100 units, 44% do not use pollution controls such as scrubbers or catalysts to limit emissions, and they pour unlimited amounts of mercury, lead, arsenic and acid gases into our air. Despite requirements in the bipartisan 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, these facilities have largely refused to control their emissions — creating an uneven playing field for companies who play by the rules and gaming the system at the expense of our health.


If these plants continue to operate without pollution limits, as a legislative wish list from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) would allow, there will be more cases of asthma, respiratory illness and premature deaths — with no clear path to new jobs.


By contrast, the nation's first-ever standards for mercury and other air toxic pollutants which the EPA will finalize this fall — and which the Republican leadership aims to block — are estimated to create 31,000 short-term construction jobs and 9,000 long-term jobs in the utility sector through modernizing power plants. And the savings in health benefits are estimated to be up to $140 billion per year by 2016.


Contrary to industry lobbying, this overhaul can be accomplished without affecting the reliability of our power grid.


Our country has a long tradition of treating environmental and public health protections as nonpartisan matters. It was the case when President Nixon created the EPA and signed into law the historic Clean Air Act, when President Ford signed into law the Safe Drinking Water Act and when President George H.W. Bush oversaw important improvements to the Clean Air Act and enacted the trading program that dramatically reduced acid rain pollution.


Our environment affects red states and blue states alike. It is time for House Republicans to stop politicizing our air and water. Let's end "too dirty to fail."


Lisa P. Jackson is the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
LA Times Op-Ed

5 Reasons we need the EPA

by Gina Carroll

In the clean air fight, opponents of the Mercury Standards and Toxics Rules have begun to step up their game with fresh attacks on the EPA. There is an apparent collective Congressional brain fog about the history and origins of the EPA, the agency established as a bipartisan effort under Republican president, Richard Nixon. Given the aggressive attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency, I think a little reminder of what the EPA has done and is doing might be a timely discussion.

FIVE REASONS WHY WE NEED THE EPA

1. Companies won't clean up on their messes. They will not manage their emissions without regulations and  oversight. If there is one thing history's shown us, it's that corporate polluters will continue to pollute until they are made to stop. In fact, they will fight vehemently for their right to dirty our air, water and land. Central New York's Lake Onondagais one of many (many) examples of this. In words of Norbrook, a New York blogger, Lake Onondaga was very important to the development of the city, and various industries. Today, the entire lake is a Superfund site. For over 125 years industrial and chemical operations disposed a variety of pollutants to the lake. At one time, industry discharged approximately 20 pounds of mercury to the lake each day. It's the most polluted lake in the country! No one has been allowed to swim in it since 1940, or eat most fish from it since 1970. See what else NorBrook's blog says about how the industry in NY polluted freely pre-EPA and the price taxpayers are still paying to for the toxic aftermath.

2. EPA regulations save lives. The Environmental Defense Fund created a map that shows among the eastern states, just how many lives will be saved by the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that the Clean Air Act saved 160,000 lives in 2010 alone. Check out their ticker here. It shows how much money the Act has saved to date. The EPA estimates that Mercury Standards and Toxic Rules will prevent up to 17,000 premature deaths, 11,000 heart attacks, and over 12,000 hospital and emergency room visits.

3. EPA regulations create jobs. If you don't believe the EPA estimates for job creation, take it directly from the electric industry leaders themselves. Eight power plant operators, in a joint statement in the Wall Street Journal said this:

Contrary to the claims that the EPA's agenda will have negative economic consequences, our companies' experience complying with air quality regulations demonstrates that regulations can yield important economic benefits, including job creation, while maintaining reliability.

4. EPA protects the most vulnerable segments of society. The EPA protects those most impacted by pollution – children, elderly and the poor. The American Public Health Association said this about protecting the clean air act:

Climate change and rising temperatures expose more Americans to conditions that result in illness and death due to respiratory illness, heat-related stress and insect-born diseases. These maladies fall most heavily on our most vulnerable communities, including children, older adults, those with serious health conditions and poor people.

5. EPA is especially concerned about children. The Mercury Standards and Toxics Rules will improve the lives of everyone. But they will positively impact children by preventing 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and about 11,000 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children each year.

It's difficult to even fathom that I am compelled to extol the virtues of the EPA after all of these years. The EPA has a 40 year record that boasts major environmental improvements that have been good for the economy and everyone's quality of life. If the opponents of the EPA choose to ignore history, many of them their very own political history,  we cannot let them encourage us to forget ours. African-American families have too much on our plates to have to do battle for victories already won. But, if we must stand up and say that our community is tired of paying the heaviest price for corporate polluters, then we will.

Update from Mom's Clean Air Force

In the last few months, Americans submitted more than 800,000 comments in support of a new Environmental Protection Agency ruling, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards–the first-ever national policy to curb dangerous mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.


This is an unprecedented outpouring of support for cleaner air.


I want to thank everyone who joined MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE, you helped send a strong message to Washington.


Clearly, Americans want cleaner air. Parents are especially passionate about fighting air pollution–it hurts fetuses, babies and toddlers the most . Every pregnant–or about to be pregnant,  you know should read about mercury poisoning. Get angry–and get active. 


How dare polluters poison our babies?
Many responsible coal plant executives have already installed filters on their plants–it hasn't hurt their profits or cost them jobs.


But many polluters, and their lobbyists and political allies, are fighting these improvements. They are calling for repealing the Clean Air Act and gutting the EPA's budget so that it cannot enforce any regulations.


Now what? Our work at MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE is far from done. With the comment period closed, EPA considers the feedback, and responds to issues raised, often in the final version of the rule. The agency is required by the Courts to release the final rule by November 16, 2011. No one has to vote on the rule. Once it is published in the Federal Register, the clock starts ticking–emitters have three years from the date of publication to reduce their pollution.


Polluters will now be working overtime to figure out ways around the new ruling. They will lobby Congress to intervene to delay or alter it. Congress can pass laws that unravel air protection–laws that defund EPA, strike its right to set standards for these–or any other–pollutants, or EPA from spending money to implement rules; they could pass laws to weaken the emission standards, or extend polluters' deadlines.


Ask everyone you know to JOIN MOMS CLEAN AIR FORCE . Forward this post along via email. Naptime Activism! We make it easy to keep up the pressure on political representatives to support clean air–and we'll continue to explain why, exactly, it is so important to clean up the air.
We have to protect our children's health; no one else cares as much as we do. And thank you, again, with all my heart, for joining me in this mission.

Protect our kids - Promise

EPA delays power plant regs

The Environmental Protection Agency, facing intense opposition from Congressional Republicans and industry over a broad range of new air quality regulations, said Monday that it was delaying by two months the release of a proposed rule on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other major pollution sources.

The delay of the rule, which will have a major impact on the nation's efforts to reduce emissions of gases blamed for the warming of the planet, is the latest step by the E.P.A. to slow the issuing of regulations that its critics claim will hurt economic growth, drive up energy costs and cut employment. The delay is a tacit admission that the regulations pose difficult political, economic and technical challenges that cannot be addressed on the aggressive timetable the agency set for itself early in the Obama administration.

The agency said it was pushing back the new greenhouse gas proposal to the end of September to allow more time to consider input from power companies, environmental advocates and others. Officials said they still expected to have a final rule in place by May 2012.

Schwarzenegger: Clean Air Act keeps us healthy

I love American success stories. Start-up companies that change the marketplace, inventors who create new technologies, and, of course, immigrants who make it big in Hollywood. That's why I love the Clean Air Act, one of the most successful laws in American history. Over the last 40 years, it has made our air dramatically cleaner, saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and substantially boosted our economy.
In 1968, I came to California and didn't know why my eyes were constantly filling with tears. I quickly learned about smog and bad-air days. These days, the air is much cleaner thanks to the Clean Air Act and technologies that resulted from it, such as catalytic converters on cars and particle traps on diesel exhaust. Those toxic smog days motivated everyone to act.
Today, I have tears in my eyes again, but for a very different reason. Some in Washington are threatening to pull the plug on this success.

That's Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, "The Clean Air Act Keeps Us Healthy:  Congress can't be trusted to interfere with the EPA's scientific standards."
Here's more from the Republican who was governor of California from 2003 to 2011:

Since January, there have been more than a dozen proposals in Congress to limit enforcement of our clean-air rules, create special-interest loopholes, and attempt to reverse scientific findings. These attacks go by different names and target different aspects of the law, but they all amount to the same thing: dirtier air.
This is not an abstract political fight. If these proposals are passed, more mercury, dioxins, carbon pollution and acid gases will end up in the air our kids breathe. More Americans will get sick, end up in the hospital, and die from respiratory illness. We would be turning our backs on the sound science and medical advice that has reduced air pollution from large industrial sources by more than 70% since the late 1960s, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The rules that are under attack put common-sense limits on dangerous chemicals in our air. Mercury, which after 20 years is finally being regulated from power plants, is a dangerous neurotoxin that damages brain development and lowers IQs in young children. Acid gases, like hydrogen chloride and hydrogen fluoride, are associated with bronchitis and asthma, according to the American Lung Association. And dioxins and other pollutants cause cancer.
Hobbling the Clean Air Act will also hurt the economy. More air pollution causes more sick days, and thus hurts productivity. And, as I know from California's experience, clean-air rules have led to innovation and new technologies that have created hundreds of thousands of new jobs and billions in clean-energy investment.
Congress should not substitute political calculations for scientific and medical facts. According to a recent poll by the American Lung Association, 69% of Americans believe that EPA scientists should set health standards, rather than members of Congress. Yet one proposal under consideration would actually overturn a finding by EPA experts on the impact of carbon pollution on our atmosphere. Another would prevent government scientists from even gathering information on the amount of this pollution going into the air.
I began my public service by promoting fitness for kids, so I know how much parents worry about keeping their children healthy. We choose the right foods, encourage exercise, wear bike helmets, and keep them away from danger whenever we can. But there are some threats, like air pollution, that we can't protect them from on our own. We can't tell our kids not to breathe or control what toxins blow into our air from neighboring states.
For this, we rely on our nation's clean-air laws.
I'm proud that it was a fellow California Republican, President Richard Nixon, who signed the Clean Air Act into law in 1970. In 1990, the act was strengthened by huge bipartisan majorities in Congress. Let's keep that bipartisan tradition alive to make sure no more tears are shed over the clean air that the American people deserve.

Protect the Clean Air Act

There are several key votes this week regarding the future of the Clean Air Act and the EPA.


Save the EPA and protect our kids.

EPA Releases Clean Air Rules

In response to a court deadline, today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the first-ever national standards for mercury, arsenic and other toxic air pollution from power plants. The new power plant mercury and air toxics standards – which eliminate 20 years of uncertainty across industry – would require many power plants to install widely available, proven pollution control technologies to cut harmful emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases, while preventing as many as 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks a year. The new proposed standards would also provide particular health benefits for children, preventing 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and about 11,000 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children each year. The proposed standards would also avert more than 12,000 emergency room visits and hospital admissions and 850,000 fewer days of work missed due to illness. 

Toxic air pollutants like mercury from coal- and oil-fired power plants have been shown to cause neurological damage, including lower IQ, in children exposed in the womb and during early development. The standards also address emissions of other toxic metals linked with cancer such as arsenic, chromium and nickel. Mercury and many of the other toxic pollutants also damage the environment and pollute our nation's lakes, streams, and fish. In addition, cutting these toxic pollutants also reduces fine particle pollution, which causes premature death, heart disease, workdays lost to illness and asthma. 

Power plants are the largest remaining source of several toxic air pollutants – responsible for half of mercury and more than half of acid gas emissions in the United States. In the power sector alone, coal-fired power plants are responsible for 99 percent of mercury emissions. 

The proposed standards also ensure that public health and economic benefits far outweigh costs of implementation. EPA estimates that for every dollar spent to reduce pollution from power plants, the American public and American businesses will see up to $13 in health and economic benefits. The total health and economic benefits of this standard are estimated to be as much as $140 billion annually. 

From the EPA Press Release

Benefits of Clean Air

Benefits of Clean Air Act Rules to Reach $2T

A two-decade-old crackdown on smog and soot under the Clean Air Act will yield about $2 trillion in annual benefits by 2020, according to a study (pdf) that was released by U.S. EPA this morning and was touted as proof that the embattled agency's rules are an economic boon for the American people.

Those rules prevented an estimated 160,000 deaths last year, according to the analysis, and within a decade, that number is projected to rise to about 230,000. That year, the new pollution controls will prevent an estimated 200,000 cases of heart disease, 2.4 million asthma flare-ups and 22.4 million missed school and work days.

"In this cynical era of government-bashing, it is stunning to see just how well a government program can work," said Frank O'Donnell, president of the advocacy group Clean Air Watch. "This is not only a ringing endorsement of the Clean Air Act, but can be read as a stinging rebuke to those on Capitol Hill who would tamper with it."

Americans overwhelmingly oppose attempts to block EPA

You wouldn't know it from listening to reports from our media, but more than three out of four Americans (77 percent) – including a clear majority of Republicans (61 percent) – oppose efforts in Congress to block Clean Air Act updates for carbon, smog and other pollution, according to a national opinion survey by Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) International for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Americans want the EPA to do more, not less.  Almost two thirds of Americans (63 percent) say "the EPA needs to do more to hold polluters accountable and protect the air and water," versus under a third (29 percent) who think the EPA already "does too much and places too many costly restrictions on businesses and individuals." 

Americans do not want Congress to kill the EPA's anti-pollution updates.   Only 18 percent of Americans – including fewer than a third of Republicans (32 percent) -- believe that "Congress should block the EPA from updating pollution safeguards," after being told:  "Some members of Congress are proposing to block the Environmental Protection Agency from updating safeguards to protect our health from dangerous air pollution, saying they will cost businesses too much money."

You can find the full report here.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Fred Upton is ignoring Americans' support for the health protections from pollution and pushing a proposal that would allow power plants and other big plants to dump unlimited amounts of dangerous carbon pollution into our air. 

Health groups have wasted no time in slamming Chairman Upton's bill.

American Lung Association:

"The enactment of Chairman Fred Upton's bill would strip away Clean Air Act protections that safeguard Americans and their families from air pollution that puts their lives at risk. The protections against the health harm from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution are essential to public health and must be preserved." - Charles D. Connor, President and Chief Executive Officer

American Public Health Association:

"The public health community is very concerned about the long-term health consequences of global climate change…Blocking EPA's authority to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could mean the difference between chronic debilitating illness or a healthy life for countless Americans." - Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E), Executive Director

Trust for America's Health:

"TFAH is incredibly concerned that the proposed legislation will eliminate current protective measures that address the health impact of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas pollution…The science says carbon pollution is bad for our health.  Rolling back EPA's ability to protect the public from this threat literally has life and death stakes." - Jeff Levi, PhD, Executive Director

Health Care Without Harm:

"Failure to allow the EPA to safeguard our air directly threatens thousands of people with asthma and other chronic illnesses, including children.  With one out of 10 children in the United States affected by asthma, we don't have to look farther than our own neighborhoods to see the suffering and actual risk to life caused by polluted air.  Nothing could instill fear in a parent like a child unable to breathe." - Gary Cohen, President 

"Nurses understand and have seen first-hand in our nation's emergency rooms, hospitals, and communities the devastation caused by air pollution. The public's health should not suffer while members of Congress put corporate profits ahead of the public's health." - Brenda Afzal, MS, RN, Climate Policy Director 

Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments:

"We express our profound distress about the House Energy and Commerce Committee's legislation that would limit the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to set clean air standards to reduce air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.   

The broader health implications of blocking clean air standards for green house gas emissions include respiratory diseases such as asthma, allergies, cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke, heat related morbidity and mortality, mental health stress, neurological diseases, vector and water borne diseases, and weather borne morbidity and mortality...Our policy makers must understand that any bill that prevents the EPA from doing its job of protecting our air and water and through the Clean Air Act is a threat to public health and an additional cost that America's health cannot afford." - Barbara Sattler, RN, Dr.PH, FAAN.

American Thoracic Society

"The legislation proposed by Rep. Upton and Sen. Inhofe would allow polluters to emit unlimited amounts of carbon pollution into the environment. The legislation introduced today ... undermines protection of nation's clean air and continues to leave the United States vulnerable to the adverse health effects of climate change. This legislation would encourage polluters to emit carbon pollution into the air that adversely affects public health and increases global warming." - Dean E. Schraufnagel, MD, President

Choosing Pollution over Health

When members of Congress choose to support bills that would prevent the EPA from updating Clean Air Act standards, they are making a choice to support polluters over the health of children and adults in America. Some of these bills will increase the amount of mercury, smog-forming, soot, toxic and carbon dioxide pollution that industrial plants will emit compared to if the EPA is allowed to do its job. Some will simply make it a law that we must allow industrial polluters to dump unlimited amounts of carbon dioxide into the air.


That’s why NRDC and Health Care Without Harm are teaming up today to make sure that the constituents of the members of Congress that have co-sponsored one or more Bad Air Bill know that their representatives are putting their health at risk.

Happy 40th Birthday - Clean Air Act!

The benefits from the Clean Air Act amount to 40 times the cost of regulation. 


"For 40 years the Clean Air Act has protected our health and our environment, saving lives and sparking new innovations to make our economy cleaner and stronger. The common sense application of the act has made it one of the most cost-effective things the American people have done for themselves in the last half century," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "Since 1970 we have seen a steady trajectory of less pollution in our communities and greater economic opportunity throughout our nation. We will continue those trends as we face the clean air challenges of the next 40 years, including working to cut greenhouse gases and grow the American clean energy economy. The Clean Air Act proves the naysayers wrong – we can protect our health and environment at the same time we grow our economy."


Van Jones wrote the following article about the benefits of the EPA. 


The Clean Air Act turns 40 this month. But if dirty energy proponents and climate change deniers have their way, it won't survive intact for another 40 weeks.
Ever since the US Supreme Court agreed that the EPA has the right to regulate greenhouse gasses under the Act, lobbyists for dirty energy have been trying to gut the law.
Americans can't let that happen.
Promoters of dirty air have been vilifying this law since it was just a notion in a Congressional subcommittee, four decades ago. They carry on with the exact same fear-mongering today. They keep peddling the same old falsehoods: enforcing the Clean Air Act is a job killer, bad for industry, certain to ruin the economy, etc.
In 1970 they said it would "cause entire industries to collapse," and in 1980 they said it would cause "a quite death for business across the country."
It is really kind of sad. You would think that – after four decades – they could come up with some new talking points. But no: it is always the same stuff.
Unfortunately for them, we now have the benefit of 40 years of hindsight. And even the most casual review of the facts shows how demonstrably wrong the defenders of dirty air and dirty energy have been – time and time, again.
They are dead wrong, and the facts speak for themselves.
Economic Benefits
Clean air regulation in this country has created trillions of dollars in economic value.  This year alone, the benefits of clean air programs are projected to total $110 billion.  In a bipartisan gathering this week, EPA director Lisa Jackson said that the "total benefits of the clean air act amount to 40 times the cost of regulation."  Put another way, for every $1 they spend on regulation, this country gets back $40 in economic benefit.
Clean air regulation has also dramatically increased worker productivity, preventing 4,100,000lost work days since 1970, and 31,000,000 days in which Americans would have had to restrict activity due to air pollution related illness. (Now that's good for business).
It has also created entire new markets for automobiles and cleaner vehicles.  Today's new cars, light trucks, and heavy-duty diesel engines are up to 95 percent cleaner than past models thanks to technology such as the catalytic converter.  New non-road engines used in construction and agriculture have 90 percent less particle pollution and nitrogen oxide emissions than previous models. Finally, vehicle and fuel programs from clean air regulations will produce $186 billion in air quality and health benefits by 2030 – all this with only $11 billion in costs, a nearly 16-to-1 benefit/cost ratio.
Health Benefits
Clean air is essential for our health and safety; it is unconscionable to allow bottom line profits to come before human life.
Clean air regulation has produced dramatic health benefits for the nation.  According to an EPA analysis, the first 20 years of Clean Air Act programs, from 1970 to 1990, prevented:

• 205,000 premature deaths
• 672,000 cases of chronic bronchitis
• 21,000 cases of heart disease
• 843,000 asthma attacks
• 10.4 million lost I.Q. points in children – mostly from reducing lead in gasoline
• 18 million child respiratory illnesses

By 1995, the percentage of U.S. children with elevated blood-lead levels had dropped from 88.2% in the 1970s to 4.4%, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Likewise, ear infections, which have cost parents 3-5 billion dollars per year, have decreased as air quality has increased, according to the Surgeon General.
In total, the health benefits of the first 20 years of clean air regulation amount to $22.2 trillion and the total compliance costs over the same years cost $0.5 trillion. That's a savings of $21.7 billion dollars over the first 20 years of the Act's existence.
This includes a projected prevention of 1,700,000 asthma attacks, 22,000 respiratory-related hospital admission, 42,000 prevented cardiovascular hospital visits, and 295 million incidents of skin cancer.
Here's to the next 40 years!
This is a fight from which we cannot stand down.  Clean air and water is literally a matter of life and death. Some communities – particularly communities of color – don't have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.
Our clean air regulations, and the Environmental Protection Agency, need to be strengthened and protected from attacks by special interests – who continually try to put the power of America's regulatory power on the chopping block. We have a long way to go before we breathe a sigh of relief, and a long fight to protect ourselves from the promoters of dirty air.
But let us remember this: every time the American people have insisted upon higher environmental performance from our industries, American business has risen to the occasion. Over and over, entrepreneurs have shown that they can find ways to build private wealth – without unduly harming public health. That will happen, too, when the EPA begins regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
To pretend otherwise is to deliberately ignore our nation's proud history of continually improving our environmental performance. Perhaps worse, it is to confess an appalling lack of confidence in the creative power of American ingenuity.
Special interest lobbyists have been hitting the panic button about clean air regulations for (at least) 40 years. For decades paid lobbyists have tried to dupe the public (and numerous politicians) that spewing poison into the air and water for free was good for business – and that clean air and good health should be an afterthought.
They are wrong. And the champions of clean air are right – still.