The Biden administration is proposing tougher standards for a deadly air pollutant, saying that reducing soot from tailpipes, smokestacks and wildfires could prevent thousands of premature deaths a year.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the proposal to strengthen the national ambient air quality standards for fine particle pollution would help prevent serious health problems, including asthma attacks, heart attacks and premature death that disproportionately affect vulnerable populations. Those populations include children, older adults and those with heart and lung conditions as well as low-income and minority communities throughout the United States.
Seth Johnson, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice, called the EPA plan “a disappointment and missed opportunity overall.″ While it would strengthen some public health protections, “EPA is not living up to the ambitions of this administration to follow the science, protect public health and advance environmental justice,” Johnson said. He urged the EPA “to hear communities, not industrial polluters, and strengthen this rule.
Mike Ireland, president of the Portland Cement Association, which represents U.S. cement manufacturers, added that the EPA’s proposed action “is yet another regulatory burden that will hamper the cement industry’s ability to manufacture sustainable construction materials to meet the nation’s infrastructure needs.”
The EPA proposal would require states, counties and tribal governments to meet a stricter air quality standard for fine particulate matter up to 2.5 microns in diameter — far smaller than the diameter of a human hair. A micron, also called a micrometer, is equal to one-millionth of a meter.
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