As many as 24,000 Americans could lose their lives every year because of the EPA’s refusal to follow the advice of medical professionals to tighten U.S. air quality standards that control soot, dust and other particulate matter, by allowing one less microgram per cubic meter of air annually, according to a cost-benefit analysis released Friday.

The analysis also shows that the estimated $1.9 billion auto manufacturers, power plants, refineries and other companies would have paid each year to implement tighter standards would have been eclipsed by up to $51 billion in annual savings on health care costs, work and school attendance, and other benefits.

The EPA is not allowed to consider the cost of a new regulation—even though the agency is required to calculate the costs—but it is required to consider the health benefits. Many studies have linked exposure to soot, dust and other particulate matter to respiratory and cardiac disease and premature death.

Severe Illness and Death Clearly Linked to Poor Air Quality
Because of that link, the American Medical Association, the American Lung Association, and many pediatric, environmental and academic groups had urged EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to set a new air quality standard that would limit exposure to between 12 and 14 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Johnson ignored their advice, setting the standard at 15 micrograms per cubic meter of air [on September 21, 2006]. Johnson has been roundly criticized for endangering human health by bowing to industry demands for less restrictive standards.

The new cost-benefit analysis, conducted by a 12-member panel of scientists that convened at the request of the White House Office of Management and Budget and the National Academy of Sciences, shows what a difference one microgram per cubic meter can make—as many as 24,000 lives each year the regulation stays in place.

Response to EPA Decision Suggests Negligence
"I feel that [Johnson] didn't really take into account the best available science, which is now saying very clearly that there are very significant health effects related to this longer-term exposure," said Dr. Bart Ostro, one of the 12 members of the scientific panel and chief of the air pollution epidemiology section for the California EPA, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Ostro told the Los Angeles Times that the scientists on the panel calculated the risks of increased illness and mortality due to exposure to particulate matter, which the EPA then converted into possible deaths based on U.S. population and total death rates. Under a limit of 14 micrograms, one less microgram per cubic meter of air than the actual standard, the estimates predicted that the stricter standard would have saved between 2,200 and 24,000 lives annually, or an average 13,000 lives each year.

"It's pretty sobering and shocking stuff to realize the agency concluded the human cost of refusing to strengthen these air quality protections was going to be [thousands of lives] lost each year," said attorney John Walke, the clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement.

More About the EPA:

• New EPA Air Quality Standards Please No One
• EPA Plan to Allow More Air Pollution Draws Friendly Fire
• EPA Rewards Polluters with Less Oversight

More About Air Quality:

• More Than Half of U.S. Population Lives in Counties with Unsafe Air
• Why Do Heat Waves Make Air Quality Worse?
• What are the Health Effects of Airport Noise and Airport Pollution?