EcoWatch

Court Rules Pruitt Broke the Law for Smog Rule Delay

 Lorraine Chow    March 13, 2018

Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt. BipHoo Company/Flickr

A federal judge ruled Monday that Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), broke the law for failing to implement his agency’s ozone pollution rule.

Judge Haywood Gilliam of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said Pruitt violated the Clean Air Act for failing to announce by Oct. 1, 2017 which areas in the country have unhealthy levels of smog, a rule set by the 2015 ozone standard.

According to The Hill, Pruitt only announced findings for areas that complied with the Obama-era rule, but not for areas out of compliance. The EPA boss initially tried to stall the Oct. 1 deadline by a year but reversed course.

“There is no dispute as to liability: Defendants admit that the administrator violated his nondiscretionary duty under the Clean Air Act to promulgate by October 1, 2017, initial area air quality designations,” Gilliam wrote, citing a Justice Department court filing in January that acknowledged the EPA failed to meet the deadline.

Gilliam ordered the EPA to finish the process for the entire country by April 30, with the exemption of areas in San Antonio, Texas, which the agency must comply with shortly thereafter.

In 2015, the Obama administration strengthened standards for ground-level ozone to 70 parts per billion based on extensive scientific evidence about the effect of smog on public health and welfare. Smog can exacerbate asthma attacks for children and vulnerable populations.

Sixteen state attorneys general as well as a broad coalition of health and environmental organizations—including the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club—sued Pruitt in December for failing to meet the deadline for designating areas.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led the litigation, celebrated Monday’s decision.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admitted in this case that it failed to do its job and meet its deadline under the Clean Air Act,” he said. “The stakes are high. The smog-reducing requirements at issue will save hundreds of lives and prevent 230,000 asthma attacks among children. That’s worth fighting for.”

New York Attorney General Schneiderman, one of the AGs who sued the administration, added: “We’ll keep a close eye on the EPA’s compliance with today’s order, and our coalition stands ready to act to protect our residents and our states from Washington’s toxic policies.”

Environmental groups also celebrated the ruling.

“Everyone deserves to breathe clean air. And because of the Clean Air Act, we’re legally entitled to it. The court got it right when it ordered the EPA to finish making ozone designations sooner than the agency requested,” said attorney Seth Johnson, who represented Earthjustice, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the groups. “Cleaning up ozone air pollution is especially important for kids, seniors, and people with asthma. Many of our largest metropolitan areas have unhealthy smog levels. These include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Cleveland, Denver, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Antonio. The court’s decision will help save hundreds of lives by getting the cleanup process going.”

Mary Anne Hitt, the director of Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, had a similar sentiment. “This is a victory for everyone who breathes, and is clear evidence that Scott Pruitt’s frequent attempts to delay and obstruct federal clean air safeguards is against the law. The severity of Pruitt’s attempts [is] a matter of life and death. Delaying the implementation of these life saving smog standards puts the health of thousands of kids at risk.”

EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman told Reuters, “We look forward to working with co-regulators to continue the designations process for the 2015 standards for ground-level ozone; we are evaluating the information provided by governors in February 2018 as part of that process.”

CNN

EPA’s proposed repeal will make Americans sicker

By Harold P. Wimmer and Stephen C. Crane       March 13, 2018

Source: CNN

(CNN) Right now, the Environmental Protection Agency is in the midst of a process to repeal the Clean Power Plan, adopted in 2015 as the first national strategy to reduce carbon pollution from existing power plants. Taking steps to reduce carbon pollution, as outlined in the Clean Power Plan, not only limits this major driver of climate change, but reduces other toxic air pollution from power plants at the same time.

The EPA’s analysis that was published to support the proposed repeal outlines a flawed approach to evaluating the risks of pollution — specifically particulate matter, which is a mix of very tiny particles emitted into the air. When inhaled, this pollution can cause asthma attacks, lung cancer and even early death.

The EPA has cherry-picked data to conceal the true health costs of air pollution. Its revised calculations diminish and devalue the harm that comes from breathing particulate matter, suggesting that below certain levels, it is not harmful to human health. This is wrong.

The fact is: There is no known safe threshold for particulate matter. According to scores of medical experts and organizations like the World Health Organization, particle pollution harms health even at very low concentrations. Attempting to undercut such clear evidence shows the lengths the EPA, and by extension the Trump administration, will go to reject science-based policy that protects Americans’ health.

The EPA’s attempts to argue the contrary come as more medical reports affirm that climate change, at large, remains an increasingly dire threat to human health.The Clean Power Plan would result in significant reductions in carbon dioxide, which drives climate change, and an array of other dangerous pollutants, including particle pollution.

Across the globe, there is a resounding consensus among the health and medical community that climate change is already harming human health. This isn’t just a matter of seeing the looming future disaster; human health is suffering now as a result of damage to our climate caused by human activity — and some people are paying the ultimate price.

EPA cuts could risk a public health emergency

Health and medical professionals nationwide are seeing the effects of climate change on their patients. As far back as 2014, an American Thoracic Society survey of physicians found that 89% of respondents said climate change is happening, and 77% said they have seen increases in chronic disease severity from air pollution in their patients.

The EPA’s own analysis finds that repealing the Clean Power Plan could result in up to 4,500 premature deaths every year in the United States. How is this deadly outcome acceptable to President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, whose agency’s mission is to protect public health and the environment?

The EPA has a special responsibility to protect those who are most vulnerable, including children, the elderly and people with respiratory diseases — not increase their suffering. Instead, with the proposed Clean Power Plan repeal, the EPA appears to be granting power plants a license to pollute, at the expense of Americans’ health.

Simply put, America will measure the cost of repealing the Clean Power Plan in asthma attacks, emergency room visits and premature deaths that should have been and can still be avoided.

Unfortunately, the EPA has demonstrated its willingness to manipulate scientific evidence in such a way that benefits polluting industries, despite the negative consequences to Americans’ health. With relentless pressure from these industries to block, weaken or delay clean air safeguards, it is unlikely this will be the last time it tries this.

For the public, our doctors and our patients, the urgency of this issue cannot be emphasized enough. We urge the EPA to stand up for the health of all Americans and enforce, rather than repeal, the Clean Power Plan.

Harold P. Wimmer is the national president and CEO of the American Lung Association. Stephen C. Crane, Ph.D., MPH is the executive director of the American Thoracic Society. The views expressed in this commentary are their own.

EcoWatch -GMO-

EPA Considers Allowing Bee-Killing Pesticide to Be Sprayed on 165 Million Acres of U.S. Farmland

Center for Biological Diversity       December 19, 2018

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will consider allowing the bee-killing pesticide thiamethoxam to be sprayed on the most widely grown crops in the U.S. The application, if approved, would allow the highly toxic pesticide to be sprayed directly on 165 million acres of wheat, barley, corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and potato.

The proposal by the agrochemical giant Syngenta to dramatically escalate use of the harmful neonicotinoid pesticide came last Friday, on the same day the EPA released new assessments of the extensive dangers posed by neonicotinoids, including thiamethoxam.

“If the EPA grants Syngenta’s wish, it will spur catastrophic declines of aquatic invertebrates and pollinator populations that are already in serious trouble,” said Lori Ann Burd, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program. “You know the pesticide-approval process is broken when the EPA announces it will consider expanding the use of this dangerous pesticide on the same day its own scientists reveal that the chemical kills birds and aquatic invertebrates.”

Neonicotinoids have long been known to pose serious harm to bee populations. But the new EPA assessments found the commonly used pesticides can kill and harm birds of all sizes and pose significant dangers to aquatic invertebrates.

Western bumblebee by Steve Amus, USDA.

Thiamethoxam is currently widely used as a seed coating for these crops. This application would allow it to be sprayed directly on the crops, greatly increasing the amount of pesticide that could be used.

The just-released aquatic and non-pollinator risk assessment found that the majority of uses of the neonicotinoid on currently registered crops resulted in risks to freshwater invertebrates that exceeded levels of concern—the threshold at which harm is known to occur.

The EPA did not assess risks associated with spraying the pesticides on the crops it announced it was considering expanding use to on Friday. But it is likely that increasing the number of crops approved for spraying would dramatically increase that risk.

In January the EPA released a preliminary assessment of on-field exposures to thiamethoxam that found all uses of the pesticide—on foliar, soil and seeds—result in exposures that exceed the level of concern for acute and chronic risk to adult bees. But the agency has taken no steps to restrict use of these products and is now considering expanding their use.

The EPA will review a proposal to spray a bee-killing pesticide that works by attacking the bee’s central nervous system. NICOLAS TUCAT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Despite growing scientific and public concern about neonicotinoids, the application for expanded use of thiamethoxam was not announced by the EPA but quietly posted in the Federal Register.

“For years the EPA and pesticide companies bragged that by using treated seeds they were avoiding spraying insecticides, and despite the science showing that these treated seeds were deadly to birds, claimed that they were environmentally beneficial,” said Burd. “But we can expect the Trump EPA to now ignore the risks to birds and bees and approve these ultra-toxic pesticides to be sprayed across hundreds of millions of U.S. acres.”

Neonicotinoids are a class of pesticides known to have both acute and chronic effects on aquatic invertebrates, honeybees, birds, butterflies and other pollinator species; they are a major factor in overall pollinator declines. These systemic insecticides cause entire plants, including pollen and fruit, to become toxic to pollinators; they are also slow to break down and therefore build up in the environment.

A large and growing body of independent science links neonicotinoids to catastrophic bee declines. Twenty-nine independent scientists who conducted a global review of more than 1,000 independent studies on neonicotinoids found overwhelming evidence linking the pesticides to declines in populations of bees, birds, earthworms, butterflies and other wildlife.

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