Under President Joe Biden’s administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) partnered with environmental groups on Wednesday to unveil stricter limits on fine particle pollution.
The EPA announced it had finalized a set of stronger standards for particulate pollution (also referred to as PM2.5 or soot pollution), lowering the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for such pollution from an annual average of 12 micrograms per cubic meter down to nine micrograms per cubic meter.
“This final air quality standard will save lives and make all people healthier, especially within America’s most vulnerable and overburdened communities,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said Wednesday. “Cleaner air means that our children have brighter futures, and people can live more productive and active lives, improving our ability to grow and develop as a nation. EPA looks forward to continuing our decades of success in working with states, counties, Tribes, and industry to ensure this critical health standard is implemented effectively to improve the long-term health and productivity of our nation.”
Representatives from environmental nonprofits like Earthjustice, Climate Action Campaign (CAC), and Moms Clean Air Force praised the new pollution regulations in an official EPA press release on Wednesday.
“The Biden administration is taking life-saving action to protect people and rein in deadly pollution,” Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen said. “The science is crystal clear. Soot, otherwise known as fine particle pollution, is a killer. It is driving heart disease, our asthma epidemic, and other serious illnesses. The people who suffer most are children and older Americans who live in communities of color and low-income communities.”
Moms Clean Air Force co-founder and Director Dominique Browning said the EPA’s decision to tighten PM2.5 limits “is an important step towards cleaner, healthier air for all children.”
CAC Director Margie Alt said the new EPA regulations signify “meaningful progress toward protecting our health and addressing the [Biden administration’s] environmental justice commitments.”
New Efforts Garner Support From Environmentalists
The new emissions rules could bolster President Biden’s standing with environmental activists in an election year.
Green energy and the environment were key planks of President Biden’s 2020 campaign. Still, many environmental activists registered their disapproval last year when his administration approved a new oil field in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A), albeit in a scaled-down permit from the one sought initially by project proponents. In a press release last year, Ms. Dillen said the approval of the Alaskan oil field “derails [President Biden’s] own climate goals,” and Earthjustice referred to the project as a “carbon bomb.”
Ms. Alt said the approval for the Alaskan oil field “will lock in decades of dirty and dangerous oil and gas production and drown out the tremendous environmental and economic opportunities available from transitioning to a clean economy” in a March 2023 press release.
President Biden earned some renewed praise from environmental groups last month when he announced a halt on new exports of liquified natural gas (LNG), citing climate change and environmental concerns.
“This pause on new LNG approvals sees the climate crisis for what it is: the existential threat of our time,” the president said of the LNG export pause.
On news of the pause on new LNG exports, Ms. Dillen and Earthjustice applauded the Biden administration “for taking this tremendously important step to align its decision-making on gas exports with U.S. climate goals.”
On social media platform X, Moms Clean Air Force called the LNG export pause a “win for climate advocates.” CAC also shared social media posts supportive of the LNG export pause.
Industry Groups Raise Concerns
Still, the EPA’s new PM2.5 emission limits were met with pushback from commercial industries on Wednesday.
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) President and CEO Jay Timmons said the new standards, which are set to take effect in two months, “will guarantee projects currently under permitting review will have to comply with this onerous decision, making an already gridlocked permitting system further gridlocked.”
“Manufacturers in America will also be hard pressed to make long-term investment plans domestically as our global competitors have set more reasonable goals,” Mr. Timmons added. “The EU standard is currently 25, and a proposal there would be to reach 10 by 2030. The UK has a target of 10 by 2040.”
Mr. Timmons said the new emissions standards would also conflict with President Biden’s stated goal to strengthen manufacturing in communities across the United States.
“New manufacturing investments envisioned by the CHIPS and Science Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act will be subject to these new requirements,” Mr. Timmons said, listing off three pieces of legislation that the Biden administration had promoted. “This revised standard will force some communities to choose which—if any—investments can proceed without running afoul of the EPA’s decree.”
Promoting the new standards on Wednesday, the EPA projected the new pollution controls could help prevent up to 4,500 premature deaths and 290,000 lost workdays, which in turn would yield “up to $46 billion in net health benefits in 2032.”
“For every $1 spent from this action, there could be as much as $77 in human health benefits in 2032,” the EPA added.
NAM asserted that a majority of the particulate pollution that these new EPA emissions standards would restrict currently comes from non-industrial sources, including wildfires and dust from agricultural activity. That assessment was shared by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute (API), a U.S. oil and natural gas trade association.
“The majority of PM2.5 emissions originate from non-point sources such as wildfires and road dust, while industrial sources account for less than seven percent. The new standard of 9 µg/m3 is near naturally occurring levels of fine particles and will place nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population in areas of nonattainment,” API Vice President of Downstream Policy Will Hupman said Wednesday.
Mr. Hupman said that permitting challenges from the new EPA standards could jeopardize almost $200 billion in economic activity and up to 1 million jobs.
Chamber of Commerce Senior Vice President for Policy Marty Durbin said while the EPA offers wildfire-related exemptions to its PM2.5 emissions standards, submitting such a request can be time-consuming, and about 70 percent of such requests are not granted.
“EPA should have kept the prior standard in place and focused on strategies to address non-industrial emissions instead of punishing counties and the private sector for situations largely out of their control,” Mr. Durbin said.
