As many as 24,000 lives -- a large number of them Californians' -- could have been saved each year if the head of the Environmental Protection Agency had tightened soot standards by one microgram per cubic meter annually, according to an analysis released Friday.
The cost-benefit analysis also shows that although the tab for power plants, refineries, auto manufacturers and other industry for such a change would be about $1.9 billion a year -- or about $15 per household -- the savings in healthcare costs, work and school attendance and other benefits would be between $4.3 billion and $51 billion.
Exposure to soot, or fine particulate matter, has been repeatedly linked to respiratory and cardiac illness and premature death. Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley have the worst fine particulate pollution in the nation, largely because of diesel-powered vehicles. The estimates found as many as 6,400 lives would be saved annually in California.
By law, the EPA is not allowed to consider the costs of a new regulation. But it, along with all other federal agencies, is required to calculate them. The agency is required to consider health benefits.
EPA administrator Stephen Johnson has been harshly criticized by medical groups, environmentalists and his own science advisors for his Sept. 21 decision to retain a standard allowing annual exposure of 15 micrograms per cubic meter, rather than tightening it to 14 micrograms or fewer.
The American Medical Assn., the American Lung Assn., pediatric and environmental groups and scores of doctors and academics who specialize in heart and lung disease had asked Johnson to set a standard of between 12 and 14 micrograms per cubic meter of air for fine particulates, saying that study after study had shown a correlation between increased exposure to soot and higher numbers of illnesses and deaths.
Friday's online posting unleashed a new round of criticism.
"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.
Walke said that although the cost to industry "is not insignificant ... it pales in comparison to the $50 billion annually that they project will be incurred in healthcare costs as a result of the failure to upgrade the standards."
