Deadly Particles in the Air - EPA Crackdown
In a welcome move that will make the air that Americans breathe cleaner, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed on Friday to tighten standards governing fine particles, commonly known as soot. Released by sources like diesel trucks and power plants, these microscopic specks can lodge in the lungs and bloodstream and cause respiratory and heart ailments.
New standards are long overdue. In 2006, the E.P.A. reviewed the standards but decided to leave them where they had been set nearly 10 years before, at 15 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter of air. This was a favor to industry groups that did not want to make new investments in pollution controls. The agency’s scientific advisory committee, which had recommended tighter standards, was so incensed that it issued a rare public rebuke.
Thirteen states and various environmental groups challenged the old standards as too weak and, in 2009, a federal appeals court ordered the E.P.A. to come up with new limits. This time the agency, following the advice of its scientists, is recommending a standard between 12 micrograms and 13 micrograms, with the final number to be set by December.
The E.P.A. says the benefits to health will greatly outweigh the costs — every dollar spent on pollution control will result in at least $30 in health-related savings.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/opinion/deadly-particles-in-the-air.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120620
