The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to tighten air quality standards that regulate soot pollution, building on the Biden administration‘s agenda to crack down on pollution from industry, power generation, and other sectors.
The agency announced a proposed revision Friday to national ambient air quality standards for fine particle pollution. The standards obligate states and localities to monitor and take actions to achieve them, and the new rulemaking proposes to reduce allowable levels to an amount between 9 and 10 micrograms of particulate matter per cubic meter.
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The EPA’s current standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter “does not protect public health with an adequate margin of safety,” the EPA said in its announcement.
Particulate matter can be emitted from construction activities and fires. It can also form when certain gases emitted from fossil fuel-fired power plants and vehicles, such as nitrous oxide, interact with gases in the atmosphere.
Exposure to particulate matter can have deleterious effects on heart and lung function. Tighter standards would improve health outcomes and prevent up to 4,200 deaths annually, the EPA said. It estimated net health benefits associated with the rule, if it were finalized at 9 micrograms, would total as much as $43 billion in the year 2032. It’s not known what the compliance costs might be.
The current standard has been in place since 2012. The Trump administration elected not to rewrite the rule.
The proposed rule would also change monitoring rules to include an environmental justice factor, which it said would “account for proximity of populations at increased risk of [particulate matter-related] health effects to sources of air pollution.”
“This administration is committed to working to ensure that all people, regardless of the color of their skin, the community they live in, or the money in their pocket, have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to lead a healthy life,” said Administrator Michael Regan.
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Some environmental groups wanted tighter standards of 8 micrograms per cubic meter and criticized the Biden administration for not being more aggressive with its revision to the NAAQS.
“Setting the standards at these levels would provide scientifically supported protections for public health from both typical and peak concentrations of fine particulate matter,” said Hayden Hashimoto, an associate attorney at Clean Air Task Force.
Leading business and oil industry groups said the tighter standards would blunt investment in manufacturing and other sectors.
The Biden EPA has introduced and finalized a number of regulations, such as the cross-state pollution, or “good neighbor” rule, to crack down on pollution from power plants and other sources.
Separate proposed regulations seek to target the emissions of methane from the oil and gas sector, and a proposed rulemaking for the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants is expected this year.
