CASAC Presses Case for a Lower Annual PM Standard
EPA’s science advisors, meeting in a teleconference on February 3, 2006, agreed to send a letter to EPA Administrator Steven Johnson urging that several aspects of the proposed air quality standards for particulate matter be be strengthened to conform with their prior recommendations.
EPA has drawn criticism for proposing weaker particle pollution standards than the science advisors had recommended.
Specifically, the panel agreed to reiterate their concern that adverse health effects our occuring below the current annual average standard for fine particles, and that the standard must be lowered to protect public health. The advisors voiced their objections to EPA’s proposed exemption of the mining and agriculture industries from the proposed coarse particle standard, restated their support for monitoring of coarse particles in rural areas. The proposal exempted communities with less than 100,000 people from monitoring requirements. In addition, the panel restated its support for a more stringent secondary standard to protect against visibility impairment than was proposed by EPA. Finally, the panel questioned why the EPA Adminstrator chose to ignore the risk assessment which had been extensively vetted by the Committee.
The Committee will send a formal letter restating its concerns in several weeks.
Several presentations from the meeting posted on EPA’s website[www.epa.gov/sab/panels/casacpmpanel.html] online.
These presentations include the public comments of Bart Ostro of the California EPA, Dr. John Balbus of Environmental Defense, Phil Johnson of Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), and Deborah Shprentz of the American Lung Association.
In addition, Rich Poirot, a member of the CASAC panel, made a presentation on the need for stronger secondary standards to prevent visibility impairment. His presentation includes some compelling visual examples depicting impairment of visibility at the level of the proposed standards.
The ALA and Cal EPA presentations noted that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) tampered with the preamble of EPA’s proposal to cast doubt on the scientific need for tougher standards.
The Northeastern states’ testimony points out that better standards, supported by science, would protect more people from particle pollution.
The Environmental Defense statement lays out a compelling case for a more stringent annual fine particle standard.
Here are a few excerpts:
California EPA: Notes that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made last-minute insertions to the proposal to cast doubt on the science. “After years of vetting the science by CASAC in an open forum, the last minute addition of edits and opinions by OMB and others circumvents the entire peer review process,” notes Bart Ostro, Chief of California EPA’s Air Pollution Epidemiology Unit. “Many of the statements [inserted by the White House] overstate uncertainty and misrepresent the scientific consensus.”
American Lung Association: “Suddenly, in the preamble, we are seeing language inserted by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that distorts the staff scientists’ and this committee’s interpretations of key scientific studies. This language is inconsistent with the conclusions of the Criteria Document and Staff Paper which have been thoroughly vetted by this Committee… Please stick to your guns. Lowering the annual fine particle standard as recommended by this Committee is vitally important. Any flipflopping will impair the credibility of this Committee in this and future reviews.”
Northeastern States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM): “EPA has the option to more than double the number of people in the U.S. protected by PM2.5 standards if it chooses to follow CASAC’s recommendations for an annual standard of either 13 or 14 μg/m3. This number could be considerably larger were the Administrator to propose even more stringent 24-hr and annual standards recommended by EPA staff.”
Environmental Defense: Notes recent science underscores the need for a tougher annual particle standard, and also rebukes EPA for exempting “rural” areas from bigger-particle standards – in fact, proposing not even to measure such pollution there: “EPA’s monitoring rule thus severely impairs the objective of increasing understanding of the level, size distribution and composition of coarse PM in rural areas and small to mid-size communities… we are deeply concerned that EPA’s proposal offers a blanket exemption to the agriculture and mining industries”
Attachments
- Environmental Defense Letter to CASAC
- ed-casac-letter.pdf
2-1-06 Letter to CASAC
- ALA CASAC Testimony 2-3-06
- ala-2306-casac-testimony.pdf
Statement of Deborah Shprentz at CASAC Teleconference
