particulates: EPA’s science advisers disappointed by proposed PM standards

[Guest guest]

March 8, 2006

EPA’s science advisers disappointed by proposed PM standards

In an unprecedented move, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee

asks EPA to rethink its proposed rules.

—KRIS CHRISTEN

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2006/mar/policy/kc_PMstandards.h\

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Under a set of standards [1.5MB PDF] published in January, the U.S. EPA

is proposing to reduce allowable levels of particulate matter (PM) found

in the air people breathe, but not by as much as its Clean Air

Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) recommended. In an unusual move,

CASAC members criticized the proposed rule, saying it would not be

sufficiently protective. The committee plans to send a letter to EPA

Administrator Steve explaining the scientific rationale

underlying its recommendations and calling for a tighter rule.

Numerous studies have associated fine particles, PM less than 2.5

micrometers in diameter (PM2.5), with a variety of respiratory and

cardiovascular problems, ranging from aggravated asthma to irregular

heartbeats, heart attacks, and premature death in people with heart or

lung disease, according to EPA. Consequently, the agency’s proposed

air-quality standard revisions would lower the daily PM2.5 standard

nearly 50% from 65 to 35 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) to protect

the public from short-term exposure to high PM2.5 levels. The annual

PM2.5 standard would remain the same. In addition, the daily

coarse-particle standard for PM between 10 and 2.5 micrometers in

diameter (PM10–2.5) would be lowered from 150 to 70 µg/m3. The proposal

would exempt the agricultural and mining sectors from having to comply.

However, EPA’s CASAC recommended [1.4MB PDF] a lower annual PM2.5

standard and didn’t specify any exemptions. This is the first time an

EPA administrator has chosen not to completely follow CASAC’s advice,

according to an agency official and others. “To my knowledge, this is

the first time CASAC has ever felt the need to come back to the agency

[to provide additional advice and recommendations] once we are at the

proposed-standard stage,” the CASAC official says. Panel members held a

teleconference meeting in February to discuss how to respond.

During the February phone call, Bart Ostro, chief of the California

EPA’s Air Pollution Epidemiology Unit, who does not sit on CASAC,

highlighted last-minute edits to the rules by the White House Office of

Management and Budget (OMB) and others that he asserted “circumvent the

entire peer-review process.” Ostro added, “Many of the [OMB] statements

overstate the uncertainty [of health-effects studies] and misrepresent

the scientific consensus.”

Deborah Shprentz, a consultant to the American Lung Association,

testified that more than 100 leading air-quality scientists and

physicians called on EPA in a December 2005 letter to propose

substantially more protective PM standards. “Please stick to your guns,”

she added. “Lowering the annual fine-particle standard as recommended by

this committee is vitally important.”

Various industry groups argue against changing the standards at all,

just as they did when EPA tightened the PM rules in 1997. “There are a

lot of questions out there that haven’t been adequately addressed,” says

Dan Riedinger, spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, which

represents electric utilities. “Any action at this time to further

tighten the standard when we haven’t even begun complying with the

current standard set in 1997 is premature.”

Millett, an EPA spokesperson, says the agency is not yet done with

the proposal. “We’ll consider all the [public] comments we get,”

including those from CASAC, he says. EPA is required to finalize the

rule by September.

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