Environmental Health Advocate Urges EPA to Adopt Stronger Protection Standards for Deadly Ozone Smog

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Sharyn Stein, (202) 572-3396, sstein@environmentaldefense.org   

Jennifer Andreassen, (202) 572-3387, jandreassen@environmentaldefense.org

(Philadelphia, August 30, 2007) – During a public hearing today on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal to modestly strengthen the current health standard for deadly ozone smog pollution, a health advocate from Environmental Defense urged EPA to adopt the stronger health standard recommended by all 23 expert scientists on the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) that would protect millions more Americans. 

“The extensive scientific research about ozone is clear: breathing it can kill you,” said Mel Peffers, air quality project manager for Environmental Defense. “Smog endangers human health at concentrations well below the current federal standard and it is especially dangerous for children, the elderly and people with asthma and other lung diseases.”

CASAC has recommended that the ozone health standard should be set in the range of 0.060 to 0.070 ppm. EPA has proposed to set the health standard within the range of 0.070-0.075 parts per million (ppm), but the agency also is soliciting comment on keeping the current standard of 0.08 ppm — which would leave millions of Americans at risk. 

The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Thoracic Society, Environmental Defense, EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, and World Health Organization, among others, recommend much more protective ozone standards.

Clinical studies of healthy adults show decreased lung function, increased respiratory symptoms, inflammation, and increased susceptibility to respiratory infection at the current standard of 0.08 ppm, with one study suggesting adverse lung function effects in a sensitive subset of the population at 0.06 ppm. Short-term increases in ozone were found to increase deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory causes in a large 14-year study in 95 U.S. cities. The relationship between mortality and ozone was evident even on days when pollution levels were below =concentrations of 0.06 ppm.

According to EPA, lowering the ozone health standard to <0.065 compared to ozone concentrations in 2004 (a year when weather conditions resulted in relatively low ozone concentrations) would lower the mortality rate from 15 to 6 people per one million in

Philadelphia (a 60% decrease), from 8 to 3 people per one million in Atlanta (a 62.5 % decrease), from 9 to 3 people per one million in Chicago (a 66.6% decrease), from 5 to 1 people per one million in Houston (a 80% decrease) and from 14 to 2 people per one million in Los Angeles (a 86% decrease).  http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/ca/Mort table -‘04 data.pdf

Each year, pollution reductions due to effective implementation of the Clean Air Act prevent more than 200,000 premature deaths, more than 650,000 cases of chronic bronchitis, more than 200,000 hospital admissions, more than 200 million respiratory ailments, and more than 22 million lost work days.  The monetary benefits to society have outweighed the costs by a factor of more than 40 to 1.

Technological innovation has made these far-reaching gains in reducing air pollution and protecting public health possible at far less cost than originally anticipated. For example, in 1994, automobile manufacturers estimated the cost of advanced low emission vehicles would be in excess of $1,500. One year later, Honda placed a Civic subcompact model on the market that emitted less than half of what was permitted under California law at a cost of $100.