Yesterday the EPA announced that it is planning to take 31 actions to roll back standards and rules that PROTECT OUR HEALTH. Even though EPA’s mission is to protect health, the statement yesterday said the goal was to unleash American energy and contained the phrase “Reconsideration of regulations throttling the oil and gas industry.” There was NO mention of protecting health in the statement, and many false statements about economic impacts. All of the clean air standards were created with public input, including input from industry, health care, citizens, and scientists. Please read this statement from our colleagues at the American Lung Association.
In addition, the EPA announced it is planning to close its environmental justice office and stop doing that work. This is despite the fact that there are many studies showing more pollution exposure among Black and brown communities. To this day, we can find differences in air pollution that follow the redlining maps created in the 1930s.
We are going to point out here how Clean Air Rules protect health, and boost the economy too. These are just some examples, there are hundreds of studies that show similar results.
- Standards and regulations put in place because of the Clean Air Act improved air quality and led to children and teens having bigger, healthier lungs. Teens now have lungs that are 10-12% bigger (and healthier) because of these standards.
- Children and teens have fewer bronchitis problems as the Clean Air Act led to standards that made the air cleaner, for multiple pollutants: ozone, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), coarse particles (PM10), and fine particles (PM2.5). These health benefits were for children with asthma, and children who don’t have asthma.
- Closing coal plants led to fewer premature births, and there is the most improvement for people who lived closest to the coal plants.
- Closing coal plants or installing scrubbers to clean the air also meant that people with asthma were healthier, they needed fewer prescriptions to be able to breathe, and emergency room visits and hospitalizations went down.
- In Georgia, students are healthier, can exercise better, and do better on their end of year tests when they breathe less diesel exhaust.
- Students in school districts that used EPA Clean School Bus funds to replace the oldest dirtiest diesels, had both improved test scores and improved student attendance.
- Reducing air pollution while moms are pregnant improves children’s IQ several years later.
Here are some examples of blaming Clean Air standards for a poor economy are JUST PLAIN WRONG.
- On high pollution days in New York City, the stock market actually goes down.
- In fact, spending money on getting rid of air pollution actually BOOSTS GDP.
- Closing coal plants improves crop yields by millions of bushels each year.
- The health costs of air pollution are over $800 billion each year.
In addition, multiple medical professional societies state that climate change is a health emergency, and the biggest health threat to children who are alive now. Over 200 medical journals published the same article, stating that climate change threatens human health and we need emergency action to address it. Medical professionals also note that “We don’t have to live this way.”
These plans that EPA announced will make us sicker, cause more deaths, and make health disparities worse. We wonder why they care more about the effects of air pollution standards on the oil and gas industry and not our health, and why an agency that is supposed to protect health wants to make us sicker.
Read the EPA announcement here.
3-13-2025 AKMB
