Tag: air pollution

Experts warn Trump’s EPA policies mean more cases of autism

Credit: Getty Images

Small particles of air pollution can travel directly from the nose to the brain, causing damage.

Some of the country’s leading experts on healthy brain development have come together to warn the public that President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back science-based air pollution standards will come at a high cost to our children.

Published in the American Journal of Public Health this week, these scientists and doctors cite “mounting evidence linking air pollution to neurodevelopmental disorders in children, like autism, ADHD, memory deficiencies and reduced IQ.”

The article makes several specific recommendations for how the government can protect children, one of the most important being to “strengthen and enforce federal fuel efficiency standards.” As the article explains, “Increasing evidence links prenatal exposure to traffic-related air pollutants and PM2.5 [tiny particulates] to autism spectrum disorder.”

View the complete March 1 article by Joe Romm on the ThinkProgress website here.

E.P.A. Rule Change Could Let Dirtiest Coal Plants Keep Running (and Stay Dirty) Image

The following article by Eric Lipton was posted on the New York Times website August 24, 2018:

The Brandon Shores power plant in Maryland spent hundreds of millions to install pollution-control systems. A new Trump administration proposal would let some older coal plants skip such upgrades. Credit: Shannon Jensen for The New York Times

WASHINGTON — One of the main advancements of the past half-century at coal-burning power plants has been the “scrubber,” a clean-air device that played a major role in ending the acid-rain crisis of the 1970s and that removes millions of tons a year of a pollutant blamed for respiratory disease.

However, the Trump administration’s proposed rewrite of climate-change regulations could enable some of America’s dirtiest remaining coal plants to be refurbished and keep running for years without adding scrubbers or other modern pollution controls.

Industry lawyers and former federal officials say the policy shift is one of the most consequential pieces of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal, made public this week, to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was designed to slow the pace of climate change in part by encouraging the retirement of older coal plants and a shift toward greener energy sources.

View the complete article here.

Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution

The following article by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson was posted on the Washington Post website July 3, 2017:

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

An appeals court Monday struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s 90-day suspension of new emission standards on oil and gas wells, a decision that could set back the Trump administration’s broad legal strategy for rolling back Obama-era rules.

In a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation.

The agency has proposed extending the initial delay to two years; the court will hold a hearing on that suspension separately. Continue reading “Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution”