The Biden administration finalized regulations severely tightening restrictions on fine particulate matter that the manufacturing and energy sectors are legally allowed to emit, an action that industry said would have devastating economic consequences.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the regulations Wednesday morning in a joint announcement with environmental activists, saying limiting particulate matter known as PM2.5 or soot would have health benefits for Americans nationwide. [emphasis, links added]
The rulemaking lowers the annual PM2.5 standard from a level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to a level of 9 micrograms per cubic meter.
“Today’s action is a critical step forward that will better protect workers, families, and communities from the dangerous and costly impacts of fine particle pollution,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters in a call. “The science is clear. Soot pollution is one of the most dangerous forms of air pollution and is linked to a range of serious and potentially deadly illnesses, including asthma and heart attacks.”
“The stronger standard is designed to ensure clear, routine pathways for industry to continue to upgrade and build while maintaining cleaner, healthier air,” Regan continued. “We know that cleaner air and a strong and bustling economy go hand in hand.”
According to the EPA, the regulations will prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays while yielding up to $46 billion in net health benefits by 2032. …snip…
However, industry associations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have warned of the potentially wide-ranging impacts of more restrictive particulate matter restrictions.
In a September letter to Regan, those groups and 30 other industry associations said the regulations could lead to onerous permitting requirements that would “freeze manufacturing and supply chain investments.”
They also pointed to a May 2023 study conducted by Oxford Economics and commissioned by NAM that concluded more restrictive PM2.5 regulations would threaten between $162.4 and $197.4 billion of economic activity while putting 852,100 to 973,900 current jobs at risk.
“Tightening the NAAQS PM2.5 standard will grind permits to a halt for a large portion of our country,” Marty Durbin, the senior vice president for policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday. “EPA’s new rule is expected to put 569 counties out of compliance and push many others close to the limit, which threatens economic growth.”
“Compliance with the new standard will be very difficult because 84% of emissions now come from non-industrial sources like wildfires and road dust that are costly and hard to control,” he continued. “While EPA states there are exemptions for wildfires, 70% of those requests haven’t been granted in the past, and the process for seeking one is time-consuming and difficult for states to manage.”
Durbin added that the EPA should have maintained the previous standard of 12 micrograms per cubic meter and focused its attention instead on reducing non-industrial emissions. The regulations, he said, punish counties and the private sector “for situations largely out of their control.”
The regulations, meanwhile, will make the U.S. PM2.5 standards among the world’s most burdensome.
While Australia and Canada have annual standards lower than 9 micrograms per cubic meter, Japan has a standard of 15 micrograms per cubic meter, and the U.K. and European Union both have a standard of 20 micrograms per cubic meter.
China and India have annual standards of 35 micrograms per cubic meter or greater.
“Protecting public health and the environment is a top priority for our industry, and America has seen significant air quality improvements and reduced emissions over the past decades under the existing EPA standards,” said API Vice President of Downstream Policy Will Hupman.
“Yet, today’s announcement is the latest in a growing list of short-sighted policy actions that have no scientific basis and prioritize foreign energy and manufacturing from unstable regions of the world over American jobs, manufacturing, and national security,” Hupman continued. “As we review the final standard, we will consider all our options.”
Read full post at Fox News
LNT – The Linear No Threshold theory.
The Linear No Threshold theory holds that there is no such thing as a safe limit for anything – which was adopted by President Nixon as the foundation logic for legislation by the EPA and others for protecting the population from pollution.
At the time this might have been considered along the lines of “what harm” could such an assumption do ? – probably nothing if common sense prevailed, but this concept has been taken to extremes by various groups / lawfare etc. etc.
But if you consider that water exceeds the LD50 limit for most substances (LD50 = where more than 50 times the daily dose will be fatal) – drinking 6l of water in 3 hours has in fact proven fatal.
So what is the LNT limit for water then ?
The LNT limit has no basis in scientific fact and its proponents resist any attempts to even prove otherwise.
As a result of LNT we are subjected to excessive legislative intrusion and regulation of substances like PM2.5 particles (exhausts and smoke etc.) and 20 parts per billion Benzine limits etc. etc. none of which are based on actual science.
Typically once legislation is approved for some reduction, the alarmists start clamouring for even further cuts – using the absolutely circular logic that if the legislators thought that if PM2.5 was beneficial to human health then PM1.0 must be even better. Under LNT there is no threshold (regardless of cost and actual risk) which will ever satisfy zealots.
LNT goes hand-in-glove with another false and emotionally well worn idea: “worth it if it saves one life.” Every bureaucratic agency constantly seeks to justify their existence with more and more regulations! At the start these agencies may have served a purpose but no longer; they’re morphed into super-legislative monsters!