AIR POLLUTION: EPA “completely blindsided” by President Obama’s decision to scrap tougher smog rules

Posted on September 3, 2011 by Buck

President Obama has, in the past, made decisions that have been unpopular with his base. For example, the President extended the unpopular Bush Tax Cuts, which were never paid for. Now, he’s unexpectedly scrapped the implementation of EPA’s tougher smog rules.

However, he’s undoubtedly made decisions that have been popular with his base. Though, it seems that the former have drawn more attention than the latter, because arguably, again, the American people lose at the expense of corporate favoritism or over some perceived threat that doesn’t actually exist.

The effects of air pollution are quantifiable. Air pollution costs governments millions in healthcare costs, and poor air quality costs people their lives. In fact, EPA “estimates indicate the stricter [smog] rule would have cut asthma attacks in [certain] areas, as well as reduc[e] premature deaths.”

The President is taking a huge gamble by compromising with Republicans too much and by compromising over issues that are considered significant to his base. Certainly, it doesn’t matter how much the President gives up, because Republicans would rather watch Obama fail even if the President’s policies could be helpful to the American public. Also, the Republicans never seem to give the President credit, without attacking him, even though he’s made huge concessions to them. In fact, although “Republicans said [that] scrapping the smog rule was the right thing to do . . . they hammered Obama anyway.”

Perhaps the President truly believes that abandoning tougher air pollution regulations will assist economic recovery. However, the economy is most certainly so damaged by Bush-era policies that I seriously doubt rolling back environmental policies and regulations will actually have a meaningful, positive effect on economic recovery or job recovery. In fact, rolling back environmental regulations will have the opposite effect or a negative impact, I believe, by making people sicker and less productive.

Obviously, sick people aren’t as productive as healthy people, so employers or corporations and small businesses lose profits when their employees can’t be productive due to sicknesses that have been brought on by environmental degradation. Furthermore, since some employers provide their employees with health insurance, employers certainly pay more when their employees suffer from sicknesses associated with environmental degradation.

Also, the healthcare system (or lack thereof) of the United States isn’t a system that’s affordable. People have lost their homes simply because they got sick. Thus, I believe it’s a terrible idea to abandon environmental regulations and policies that make (or will make) the environment cleaner and ensure that more people remain healthy.

Furthermore, by abandoning environmental policies, the President is sending the message to the American people and to the international community that the environment is less important than corporate profits — despite the fact that without the environment, there can be no corporations, markets, or societies, because all of the goods and services that we depend on come directly from the environment. Also, even though the new smog rules will certainly cost corporations capital to implement, these rules could spur the development of new, useful technologies and save corporations money for the aforementioned reasons. Ultimately, everyone loses when we abandon environmentalism for profit — people, employers, and corporate profits.

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INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE: Air pollution from hog farms linked to illnesses

Posted on May 3, 2011 by Buck

A University of North Carolina study has tied air pollution that is emitted by hog farms to illnesses of people that live nearby. Via North Carolina Public Radio:

Epidemiologist Steve Wing from the Gillings School of Global Public Health placed air pollution monitors in communities surrounded by large hog farms. He says one of the most important gasses he measured is hydrogen sulfide. The rotten egg smelling gas is known to be toxic to the nervous and the respiratory systems. Wing also asked residents to keep diaries of their symptoms.

Steve Wing: What we found in our research was that as the levels of hydrogen sulfide went up, the reporting of symptoms and problems with quality of life and actual stress levels, that all of those responses went higher in proportion to the amount of hydrogen sulfide in the air, in the community …

Wing says other pollutants get into the air when farmers spray hog waste onto fields, and when they ventilate large barns containing hundreds of hogs.

On the Net:

AIR POLLUTION: American Lung Association launches billboard campaign against Fred Upton

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Buck

Images via American Lung Association

Fred Upton, who is a Republican Representative from Michigan and the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, wants to “to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of the ability to regulate climate-warming gases like carbon dioxide, which the agency declared a threat to public health and safety in 2009.” The American Lung Association (ALA), in response, placed “four ads in Upton’s district, some in direct view of Upton’s district offices.” More via the ALA:

The American Lung Association is working to protect the public health from air pollution. We are defending the Clean Air Act to ensure that all Americans can have air that is safe and healthy to breathe. The Clean Air Act has provided the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authority and the responsibility to protect and clean up the nation’s air since 1970. Thanks to that law and later amendments that strengthened it, people throughout the nation breathe cleaner, healthier air.

But, the work is not done; millions of Americans continue to breathe unhealthy air. Polluters and some members of Congress want to interfere with EPA’s ability to protect public health. Most Americans believe that the Clean Air Act needs protecting. We are fighting hard to prevent anyone from weakening or undermining the law or the protective standards the law provides. We are fighting to ensure EPA has the legal authority and necessary funding to continue to protect public health.

Please join us in this fight for air. Click here for an interactive overview of the fight.

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, determined that carbon emissions can be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The Court also determined that if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wishes to regulate carbon emissions or if the agency wanted to decide against regulating carbon emissions, then the EPA must determine whether greenhouse gas emissions cause or contribute to climate change and therefore endangers the public’s health and welfare. Consequently, the EPA reasonably concluded in an endangerment finding that “six long-lived and directly-emitted greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆)” threaten the public’s health and welfare. Via the EPA (emphasis added):

The Administrator has considered how elevated concentrations of the well-mixed greenhouse gases and associated climate change affect public health by evaluating the risks associated with changes in air quality, increases in temperatures, changes in extreme weather events, increases in food- and water-borne pathogens, and changes in aeroallergens. The evidence concerning adverse air quality impacts provides strong and clear support for an endangerment finding. Increases in ambient ozone are expected to occur over broad areas of the country, and they are expected to increase serious adverse health effects in large population areas that are and may continue to be in nonattainment. The evaluation of the potential risks associated with increases in ozone in attainment areas also supports such a finding.

. . .

There is some evidence that elevated carbon dioxide concentrations and climate changes can lead to changes in aeroallergens that could increase the potential for allergenic illnesses. The evidence on pathogen borne disease vectors provides directional support for an endangerment finding. The Administrator acknowledges the many uncertainties in these areas. Although these adverse effects provide some support for an endangerment finding, the Administrator is not placing primary weight on these factors.

Finally, the Administrator places weight on the fact that certain groups, including children, the elderly, and the poor, are most vulnerable to these climate-related health effects.

The Administrator has considered how elevated concentrations of the well-mixed greenhouse gases and associated climate change affect public welfare by evaluating numerous and far-ranging risks to food production and agriculture, forestry, water resources, sea level rise and coastal areas, energy, infrastructure, and settlements, and ecosystems and wildlife. For each of these sectors, the evidence provides support for a finding of endangerment to public welfare. The evidence concerning adverse impacts in the areas of water resources and sea level rise and coastal areas provides the clearest and strongest support for an endangerment finding, both for current and future generations. Strong support is also found in the evidence concerning infrastructure and settlements, as well ecosystems and wildlife. Across the sectors, the potential serious adverse impacts of extreme events, such as wildfires, flooding, drought, and extreme weather conditions, provide strong support for such a finding. Water resources across large area

On the Net:

CLIMATE POLITICS: Under Republican leadership, Texas has decided to ignore upcoming federal greenhouse gas emission rules

Posted on November 7, 2010 by Buck

Under Gov. Rick Perry, Texas has filed 7 lawsuits in the last 9 months over #EPA efforts to curb #GHG: http://ow.ly/35PKX #climate #politics—
Buck (@buckdenton) November 07, 2010

Image via melancholic optimist on Flickr

In Texas, the Republican Party is taking aim at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its obligation to regulate carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. EPA, held that the Clean Air Act authorizes the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions (footnotes omitted):

On the merits, the first question is whether § 202(a)(1) of the Clean Air Act authorizes EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles in the event that it forms a “judgment” that such emissions contribute to climate change. We have little trouble concluding that it does. In relevant part, § 202(a)(1) provides that EPA “shall by regulation prescribe … standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in [the Administrator's] judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” 42 U.S.C. § 7521(a)(1). Because EPA believes that Congress did not intend it to regulate substances that contribute to climate change, the agency maintains that carbon dioxide is not an “air pollutant” within the meaning of the provision.

The statutory text forecloses EPA’s reading. The Clean Air Act’s sweeping definition of “air pollutant” includes “any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical … substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air … .” § 7602(g) (emphasis added). On its face, the definition embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe, and underscores that intent through the repeated use of the word “any.” Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons are without a doubt “physical [and] chemical … substance [s] which [are] emitted into … the ambient air.” The statute is unambiguous.

SCOTUS also determined that the EPA can’t ignore science or its statutory obligations:

Under the Act’s clear terms, EPA can avoid promulgating regulations only if it determines that greenhouse gases do not contribute to climate change or if it provides some reasonable explanation as to why it cannot or will not exercise its discretion to determine whether they do. It has refused to do so, offering instead a laundry list of reasons not to regulate, including the existence of voluntary Executive Branch programs providing a response to global warming and impairment of the President’s ability to negotiate with developing nations to reduce emissions. These policy judgments have nothing to do with whether greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change and do not amount to a reasoned justification for declining to form a scientific judgment. Nor can EPA avoid its statutory obligation by noting the uncertainty surrounding various features of climate change and concluding that it would therefore be better not to regulate at this time. If the scientific uncertainty is so profound that it precludes EPA from making a reasoned judgment, it must say so. The statutory question is whether sufficient information exists for it to make an endangerment finding. Instead, EPA rejected the rulemaking petition based on impermissible considerations. Its action was therefore “arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” § 7607(d)(9). On remand, EPA must ground its reasons for action or inaction in the statute.

Despite SCOTUS’s ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, Texas, under Republican leadership, is “refus[ing] to meet new federal greenhouse gas emission rules that go into effect in January.” More via the Los Angeles Times:

Texas is staking out a role as the anti-California.

With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, powerful Texans such as Rep. Joe L. Barton of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have vowed to check the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to use its existing authority to curtail greenhouse gases.

An even more ambitious challenge is coming directly from the Texas state government and leading Texas politicians. State Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott, with the support of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, has filed seven lawsuits against the EPA in the last nine months.

In some ways, Texas’ attack was bound to be bigger and bolder than it might have been from other states. After all, Texans proudly trace their lineage back to the defiant stand of Texas patriots at the Alamo and the days when Texas was an independent republic under the Lone Star flag.

ACID RAIN is increasing

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Buck

Image via numbphoto – Color mad on Flickr

Acid rain is an environmental problem, because it destroys forests and aquatic ecosystems. More from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

Acid rain causes acidification of lakes and streams and contributes to the damage of trees at high elevations (for example, red spruce trees above 2,000 feet) and many sensitive forest soils. In addition, acid rain accelerates the decay of building materials and paints, including irreplaceable buildings, statues, and sculptures that are part of our nation’s cultural heritage. Prior to falling to the earth, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) gases and their particulate matter derivatives—sulfates and nitrates—contribute to visibility degradation and harm public health.

Emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from utilities contribute to the problem of acid rain. However, emissions trading or cap and trade, a market-based regulatory program, which is also “a program within the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments,” was successful in reducing these pollutants. As a result, the Acid Rain Program was successful in reducing acid rain. However, an increase in other types of anthropogenic activities is contributing to the problem of acid rain. For example, industrial agriculture operations, such as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, also contribute to acid rain. Other factors for the return of acid rain include agricultural nitrogen runoff and more vehicles, which are displacing the gains made from the introduction of the catalytic converter. More from Scientific American:

The acid rain scourge of the ’70s and ’80s that killed trees and fish and even dissolved parts of statues on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall is back. But unlike the first round, in which sulfur emissions from power plants mixed with rain to create sulfuric acid, the current problem stems primarily from nitrogen emissions mixed with rain to create nitric acid.

. . .

Sulfur emissions from power plants were one of the primary motivations for the U.S.’s Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which set reduction targets for both sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). However, whereas sulfur dioxide emissions decreased almost 70 percent from 1990 to 2008, emissions of one NOx—nitrogen dioxide (NO2)—went down only 35 percent for that same period, and amendment targets have yet to be made, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “This comes as scientists have grown increasingly aware of the consequences of the remaining nitric acid deposition,” Schlesinger says.

. . .

Nitric acid rain is derived primarily from power plant, car and truck emissions as well as from gases released by fertilizer use. Part of the problem dates back to WWI, when two German scientists invented the Haber–Bosch process, which took nonreactive nitrogen from the air (N2) and converted it into reactive, usable ammonia (NH3). Most of the nitrogen harvested via this process has been used in fertilizers, and the runoff from farms has created dead zones in Chesapeake Bay and at the mouths of the Columbia and Mississippi rivers. Some efforts have been made to regulate the agricultural nitrogen runoff, but atmospheric emissions of agricultural ammonia remain virtually unrestricted.

Agri-ammonia vapors also derive from concentrated animal feeding operations in the U.S. South. The gas rises into the air and is deposited dry or in rainfall where in the ground bacteria breaks it into nitrogen and nitric acid, which can kill fish and plants. “Agriculture is increasingly functioning as an intensively managed industrial operation, and that is creating serious water, soil, and air problems,” says Viney Aneja, a professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Aneja says that state’s concentrated animal feeding operations may also emit particulate matter from swine and chicken manure into the atmosphere, which can carry diseases.

NOx escapes from power plants as a by-product of coal combustion, whereas vehicular engines run at high enough pressures and temperatures to combine nitrogen and oxygen in the air. “Though catalytic converters have decreased the amount of pollution per vehicle, there are more vehicles on the road and more miles driven,” Schlesinger says. Emissions from fertilizers are the chief source of atmospheric nitric oxide, but motor vehicles have now overtaken coal power plants as the secondary most critical source of this problem.

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