The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday rebuffed accusations that it is abandoning oversight of some of the deadliest pollutants it regulates.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said the New York Times report regarding how the agency measures the health effects of ozone and fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, was “the exact opposite” of the “actual truth.”
The report centered on how the agency “monetizes” the health effects of PM2.5 and ozone. It said that the EPA plans to stop including the monetary value of lives saved and other health outcomes from reduced PM2.5 and ozone pollution in its regulatory cost-benefit analyses.
An EPA spokesperson told the Washington Examiner the agency is “not monetizing the impacts at this time.” But they said that “DOES NOT equal not considering or not valuing the human health impact” of the pollutants.
The agency said it will resume monetization practices after it reforms the methods used to calculate the dollar value of the pollutants’ effects. The EPA indicated that it believes the methods currently used to perform cost assessments, or monetization of pollutants, are based on faulty models.
As national concentrations of these pollutants have declined, the incremental effects of further reductions have become smaller and more complex to model with precision, according to the Trump administration. Given the increased analytical complexity, the EPA is working to refine its methods to ensure that future monetized estimates reflect the most accurate understanding of health and environmental outcomes, according to the agency. The EPA will resume converting health outcomes from reduced pollution into economic cost-benefit figures used in regulatory analyses as soon as the underlying methods used to calculate those figures are updated to meet the agency’s “rigorous analytical standards,” according to the administration.
The development comes as Zeldin and the Energy Department have pursued major changes to how Washington regulates energy production and other matters that carry environmental effects. The Trump administration says that such policy changes are aimed at “encouraging innovation and cutting unnecessary red tape.”
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Most recently, the EPA proposed a rule that would roll back state and tribal ability to block pipelines and other infrastructure for oil and natural gas.
“By returning Section 401 to its clear statutory boundaries, we’re strengthening the role of state and tribal partners while ensuring environmental protections are implemented lawfully, efficiently, and consistent with congressional intent,” Zeldin said of the agency’s proposal to narrow Section 401 of the 1972 Clean Water Act.
