EPA declines to strengthen soot standards after contentious scientific review

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The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to retain current federal limits on industrial soot pollution, spurning tighter limits that environmentalists and the agency’s own staff said were needed to protect health.

In a proposed rule Tuesday, the EPA said it would retain national ambient air quality standards for fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, which the agency has said poses serious risks to human health and welfare. The fine particles are commonly known as soot, and when inhaled, they can cause increased respiratory symptoms, such as difficulty breathing, nonfatal heart attacks, and premature deaths in people with lung or heart disease, according to the agency.

The agency said it would also retain current standards for coarse particles, or PM10.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the agency determined the current standards are protective of public health, in a review he touted as the first to meet the five-year timeline required of the agency by law.

There are “still a lot of uncertainties” regarding recent scientific research on soot, Wheeler said. The Obama EPA strengthened the annual soot standard during the last review completed in 2012.

Wheeler also said he took into account recommendations from EPA staff and the agency’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee, a panel of seven appointed scientists and other experts that also reviewed the science. That panel was split on whether to strengthen the standards.

“It’s important to note that once the five-year review ends, the next five-year review begins,” Wheeler told reporters Tuesday. “If there are questions on uncertainties in scientific studies, they will be reviewed in the next five-year review.”

Scientific experts and environmentalists, though, say the EPA’s decision disregards recent science showing soot pollution can harm health even at low levels, below what the current standard determined is adequate.

“The current soot standard isn’t working — more than 50,000 people are dying prematurely each year under normal circumstances,” said Gina McCarthy, the head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, who led the EPA during the Obama administration. “EPA’s own scientists say more than 12,000 lives could be saved every year by strengthening the national limits for soot.”

And environmentalists say the proposal is especially concerning as the United States attempts to fight off the coronavirus outbreak, a disease that attacks the respiratory system. Regions with higher levels of air pollution, and of long-term exposure to soot, in particular, are experiencing a greater number of deaths from the novel coronavirus, according to an April 5 study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“We’re trying to tackle this novel virus that is killing people, and there is evidence that it is exacerbated by air pollution,” said Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It is absurd that in the middle of that, we would fail to protect public health. It’s very irresponsible.”

Wheeler said the EPA will review the Harvard study once it’s completed and peer-reviewed, noting the results are preliminary and haven’t been “fully vetted.”

He also said the scientists behind the study “seemed to have a bias,” pointing to their criticism of the EPA’s decision to allow flexibility on enforcement of routine pollution monitoring during the pandemic. “They either didn’t read the memo or they didn’t understand it,” Wheeler said, adding it “does not allow any increase in emissions.”

By law, the EPA must review national air quality standards for PM2.5 and other criteria air pollutants every five years. The EPA is also conducting a review of national ozone standards, which Wheeler has said he intends to complete on time by the end of 2020.

The Trump administration has been accused of cutting corners in the review process, which includes a comprehensive assessment of up-to-date scientific literature outlining the health effects of the pollutants.

The EPA disbanded a panel of independent scientific advisers slated to review that assessment, and it rejected requests to reinstate it even after the agency’s seven-person Clean Air Act Advisory Committee said they didn’t have enough resources or the right expertise to conduct such a complex scientific review. In a rare move, that committee failed to reach a consensus recommendation to Wheeler about whether or not to strengthen the standards.

Wheeler, though, said he was confident the process allowed a complete review of the science. He said the EPA disbanded the panel of advisers in order to shorten the process to be able to meet the five-year deadline.

Goldman and other scientific experts say the most recent research demonstrates the PM2.5 standards should be tightened. That body of work includes epidemiological research, which studies human health data, that shows significant negative health effects even in areas that meet the current standards and where particulate pollution levels are low.

Twenty members of the expert panel disbanded by the Trump EPA cited such research in their comments to Wheeler arguing the standards should be strengthened. Arguments for retaining the current limits, which “would require disregard of the epidemiological evidence, are not scientifically justified and are specious,” those experts said in October comments.

However, Wheeler noted that several experts on the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee had also pointed to uncertainties in some of the recent epidemiological research. He also said the EPA considered how many areas still aren’t achieving the current PM2.5 standards.

“Getting these areas of the country to attainment will help save lives,” Wheeler said. “We are taking this very seriously.”

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