air pollution

The New Particulate Standard and the Courts

The tough new air quality standard is sure to be challenged in court. Winning the challenges will be tougher.

EPA has just issued a rule tightening the air quality standard for PM2.5 — the tiny particles most dangerous to health — from an annual average of 12 μg/m³  (micrograms per cubic meter) down to 9 μg/m³. EPA estimates that, by the time the rule goes into effect in 2032, it will avoid 4500 premature …

CONTINUE READING

Inequality Today: Unfinished Work

The first step in addressing the problem is to be clear about the facts.

More than a half century after Martin Luther King’s death, his work is still unfinished.  Sadly, despite his efforts and those of many others, inequality remains a reality along multiple, interrelated dimensions: race, income, and geography.   Inequality is not merely economic; it involves differences in health and life expectancy — and in exposure to pollution …

CONTINUE READING

The Mystery of the Missing Stay Order

Why is the Supreme Court waiting for weeks to dispose of a demand for extraordinary intervention in a routine situation?

The steel industry applied for Supreme Court intervention on what they claimed was an urgent issue of vast national importance. Chief Justice Roberts requested an immediate government response. That was six weeks ago.  Since then . . . crickets. No doubt you’re on the edge of your seat, wondering about the impending crisis facing the …

CONTINUE READING

Evolving Air Quality Standards

The standards have gotten tougher. Compliance still lags.

The goal of the Clean Air Act is to achieve national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), with the primary requirement being protection of public health. As our understanding of the health effects of air pollution has improved, there has been a general trend toward tightening the standards. However, it’s very hard to keep track of …

CONTINUE READING

What’s Been Killing U.S. Coal?

No, it’s not Biden. Or EPA. The culprits are supply and demand.

From 1960 to 2005, coal use grew more or less steadily by 18 million  tons per year. It then tread water for a few years and began a steep decline in 2008, going from half of U.S. electricity to about one-fifth today.  What happened in the middle of the Bush Administration to halt growth? And …

CONTINUE READING

Reading the Tea Leaves: Biden’s and California’s Vehicle Regs at the D.C. Circuit

A leading environmental lawyer gives his perspective.

Transportation is now the source of 28% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, more than the electric power sector. The transportation sector is also a substantial source of nitrogen oxides and particulates, both of which are dangerous to human health.  The Biden Administration has taken important regulatory actions bearing on these problems, with others in the …

CONTINUE READING

Cars, Smog, and EPA

Over the past fifty years, EPA has overseen incredible reductions in auto pollution.

This is part of an occasional series of posts about the evolution of pollution standards. Today’s subject is pollution control for new vehicles, which have been known to cause smog since the 1960s. The history of these pollution standards is quite distinctive. At the high temperatures in internal combustion engines, some of the nitrogen in …

CONTINUE READING

State Air Regulations Can Go Above and Beyond National Standards 

State and local regulators can and should work to reduce particulate matter, ozone, and NOx emissions even when national standards are met. 

States and local air quality regulators have the legal authority to set particulate matter (PM), ozone, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions standards and adopt regulations for these pollutants when they are already in attainment of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the federal Clean Air …

CONTINUE READING

Spewing Out Mercury

These three power plants cause a big share of America’s mercury pollution.

In Ireland, poor people used to burn peat from fuel. Barely a step ahead of that, some American power plants burn semi-fossilized peat (lignite) to run their generators. It turns out that those power plants produce about a third of all the toxic mercury emissions of the entire industry. Even more remarkably, about half of …

CONTINUE READING

Constraints on Rollbacks

Regulations have some sticking power, even when the White House changes hands.

The Trump Administration’s massive campaign against government regulation was horrifying at the time and depressing in retrospect. Many people have been left with doubts about whether it’s even worthwhile to bother with new regulations, given the risk of a switch in control of the White House. I don’t question Trump’s regulatory carnage. But Obama’s achievements …

CONTINUE READING

TRENDING