HARRISBURG (PRNewswire) – The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has filed a joint lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for ignoring scientific evidence and the advice of its own experts in setting weak standards for disease-causing air pollution known as fine particulate matter.
The joint lawsuit was filed today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, as well as the District of Columbia and the South Coast (California) Air Quality Management District.
“This case is just one more example of the federal government ignoring sound science in establishing environmental policy and watering down safeguards designed to protect the public,” DEP Secretary Kathleen A. McGinty said.
Particulate matter, or PM, is responsible for premature death, chronic respiratory disease and asthma attacks, as well as increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits. Sources of the harmful airborne soot — particles much smaller than a grain of sand — include motor vehicle exhaust, power plant and factory emissions, and wood fires.
The federal Clean Air Act requires that EPA, in consultation with its science experts, review the existing standards for air pollutants such as PM every five years. If new evidence shows that an existing standard is too weak to protect public health, EPA must revise it.
After a recent comprehensive review of the scientific evidence, EPA’s panel of expert scientists recommended that concentrations of fine PM be lowered from the current acceptable level of 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air to 13 micrograms or 14 micrograms.
Such a reduction would prevent thousands of premature deaths annually in the United States, according to EPA’s own science experts’ impact analysis. Yet, EPA chose to ignore the recommendation and maintain the status quo.
Although a reduction of 1 microgram might seem inconsequential, EPA’s own impact analysis states that if the standard were lowered from 15 micrograms to 14 micrograms, an additional 1,000 to 11,000 lives would be saved. Other research shows that lowering the acceptable level to 13 micrograms could prevent 24,000 premature deaths per year.
Other scientific bodies, including the World Health Organization and a coalition of six American physicians’ organizations, have recommended that EPA lower allowable levels of PM to a range of 10 micrograms to 12 micrograms per cubic meter.
By failing to make the standard for fine PM more protective, EPA violated the requirement of the Clean Air Act that the agency set the standard at a level sufficient to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety.
EPA’s decision to maintain the status quo on PM levels was scheduled to take effect Monday.
The states challenging this rulemaking by EPA seek to have a federal court overturn the rule by finding that the agency has failed its congressional mandate to protect the environment and the public health.
Prior to filing this lawsuit, a number of states petitioned EPA in April 2006 to lower allowable PM limits.