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POLLUTION LIMITS

EPA barely budges on soot

Health advice disregarded

Washington — Under court order to adopt new rules to control fine dust and soot in the air, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed Tuesday to make no change in annual average limits on that type of pollution.

The EPA did propose reduction, though, of the allowed levels during any 24-hour period.

In a telephone conference call with reporters, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and other officials said that most cities will be able to meet the new standards without taking any action beyond what is already required.

In proposing to leave the allowable annual average concentrations of fine-particle air pollution at the current level, the EPA ignored recommendations of both its staff scientists and paid scientific advisers that more stringent standards be adopted.

"I made my decision based on [the] best available science," Johnson said, adding that while he appreciated the "recommendations of our clean air advisory committee," the final decision was his.

EPA staff scientists reportedly have estimated that, under current standards, fine-particle pollution causes more than 4,700 premature deaths every year in just nine major cities. EPA officials did not respond when asked whether the agency had done studies to determine how many lives would be saved by a more stringent standard.

Rule began under Clinton

Most fine-particle pollution — made of bits of dust and soot less than 2.5 millionths of a meter in diameter — comes from motor vehicle exhaust pipes or the smokestacks of coal-burning electric power plants.

The proposed rule leaves in place a standard adopted by the Clinton administration in 1997 limiting the concentration of fine particles in the air to an annual average of no more than 15 micrograms, or millionths of a gram, per cubic meter. The allowable concentration during any 24-hour period would be reduced from the current limit of 65 micrograms per cubic meter to 35 micrograms under the proposal.

Documents made public last month by Greenwire, a newsletter about energy and environmental issues, revealed that an EPA analysis showed that if the agency reduced the allowable annual average to 14 micrograms per cubic meter, industries in many cities would be required to install expensive pollution controls. Affected cities would include Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, the EPA documents show.

Johnson said that recent rules governing interstate pollution from power plants and pollution from diesel engines will lead to reductions in fine-particle pollution in the next decade.

Tuesday's announcement coincided with the release by New York University scientists of the results of a study showing that laboratory mice developed sharply increased signs of cardiovascular disease when forced to breathe air comparable to the EPA's current standards.

"We were surprised at the results from such a low level of exposure," said Lung Chi Chen, one of the authors of the study, which was funded by the EPA and is being published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Johnson and his assistant administrator for air pollution repeatedly emphasized Tuesday that the new standard is merely a proposal and that a final decision will not be made until September.

'Early Christmas present'

Environmental and health advocacy groups condemned the proposal. Reaction from the electric power industry was noncommittal.

"If EPA adopts the standard as proposed, the agency will have failed the most fundamental task required by the Clean Air Act: to protect public health from one of the major air pollutants," said John Kirkwood, president of the American Lung Association, which filed the lawsuit forcing the agency to consider new standards.

Kirkwood noted in a statement posted on the group's Web site that the lung association, along with the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Thoracic Society and the American College of Cardiology, had urged the EPA to adopt much more stringent standards.

"This is like an early Christmas present for the smokestack industry," declared Frank O'Donnell, director of Clean Air Watch.

When the current standards were established, the EPA estimated that they would prevent at least 15,000 premature deaths, 10,000 hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and 3.1 million missed days of work every year.