US EditionEPA to stop considering lives saved when setting rules on air pollution
The EPA will no longer include avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths in ozone and PM2.5 regulations, reversing decades of practice, impacting vulnerable groups.
- The Environmental Protection Agency plans to stop counting health benefits when regulating ozone and fine particulate matter, reversing decades of valuing human life in cost-benefit analyses, The New York Times reports.
- Internal EPA emails and documents show the agency will exclude health gains from reducing ozone and fine particulate matter, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce welcomed the change, with Mary Durbin calling it a rebalancing of regulations.
- Health studies show ozone and fine particulate matter link to asthma, heart disease, emphysema, while recent research connects PM2.5 to Parkinson's, kidney disease, Alzheimer's, dementia, type 2 diabetes, and low birth weight in infants.
- Environmental law experts told The New York Times the shift runs counter to the EPA's mission and could weaken clean-air rules as data centers like xAI's Colossus near Memphis use dirtier power.
- On social media, users and critics responded, with Conor Rogers on X calling it `This reads like an Onion Headline of something a Republican would do` and Sen. Ruben Gallego warning it favors business over health.
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88 Articles
EPA Air Pollution Restrictions No Longer Consider Human Cost
Source: Douglas Rissing / Getty The GOP is never beating the death cult allegations. In a move completely antithetical to the agency’s entire purpose, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it will no longer factor the monetary benefits to human health when crafting restrictions on air pollutants. According to The New York Times, the EPA has historically placed a dollar value on how much regulations on fine particulate matter …
The Brian Lehrer Show
Maxine Joselow, New York Times reporter covering climate policy, shares her reporting that found the EPA will no longer measure the lives saved by regulating two air pollutants, and what that might mean for how companies operate, how clean the air is and how it will negatively affect people's health.
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