Soot Cleanup Is Essential

Carol Browner says the Clean Air Act requires her to consider only science and public health in setting new federal pollution rules. That is exactly what the Environmental Protection Agency administrator should do before announcing the standards next month. That is also what the White House should let her do--instead of pushing the agency to be more lenient, possibly compromising public health.

The federal Clean Air Act requires the EPA to review existing regulations every five years and, if necessary, set new pollution limits or standards to protect public health, “with an adequate margin of safety.” Last November, Browner issued draft rules to protect Americans from the dangers posed by ozone, the main component of smog, and the ultra-fine airborne dirt known as particulates. The draft rules on particulates have generated one of the fiercest environmental debates in a decade. The White House has been lobbied hard by businesses, mayors, governors and members of Congress, and it’s now turning up the heat.

The EPA already regulates coarser particles that come mostly from dust. The new rule targets particulates much finer than a human hair, emitted chiefly by vehicles, utilities and fires.

The scientific studies that the EPA reviewed link these sooty particles to an estimated 64,000 American deaths each year. Riverside County residents face the highest risk in the nation from airborne particulates. EPA officials say the proposed standard would save lives and prevent several hundred thousand asthma attacks and bronchitis cases yearly.

Scientists regard the link between particles and premature death as compelling. But while most of the scientists advising Browner agreed the EPA should limit fine particles, they disagreed on, or declined to recommend, how stringent the particle rule should be.

The expense of reducing fine particle emissions could be staggering. The EPA estimates it at $6 billion each year, starting in 2007, but industry fears it could be 10 times higher. For Southern California, already struggling to comply with other Clean Air Act standards, the particulates rule will be yet another burden. Finally, much of the technology that would be needed to capture and contain particles is not even commercially available yet.

Browner acknowledges the obstacles but says the long implementation schedule of the Clean Air Act makes compliance feasible. States and cities will have until 2002 to design cleanup strategies, then eight to 10 years beyond that to implement them. Browner says she relies on American industry’s history of ingenuity in meeting environmental standards once thought impossibly high. But with the health risk so strong and immediate, she is right when she argues, “We should not in this country walk away because we don’t know the answers.”