Brian Moench: The EPA has fallen behind on its responsibility to set safe standards for air quality in Utah.
A plane flies into the Salt Lake International airport as inversion conditions settle into the valley diminishing the air quality on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022.The World Health Organization , “Air pollution is the greatest environmental threat to health and well-being at the global scale, and all populations are affected.” Someone should inform the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency . And that someone is you, The Salt Lake Tribune reader.
The Clean Air Act mandates that EPA update NAAQS every five years for “criteria” pollutants-- PM2.5, ozone, NOx, SO2, carbon monoxide, and lead. Despite the mandate, under both Republican and Democratic Administrations, EPA has repeatedly stalled updates, setting standards that were too weak. The annual standard for nitrogen oxides has not been updated since its inception in 1971. The two PM2.5 standards, for 24 hr. and annual average, have not been updated since 2006 and 2012 respectively.
After refusing to update any standards during Trump’s Administration, EPA under Biden is showing renewed interest in doing its job, but as with previous proposals they are not going far enough. EPA proposes lowering the annual PM2.5 standard from the current 12 ug/m3 to “9-10″ . Every medical organization is calling for 8 ug/m3. Inexplicably, they are also proposing to leave the 24 hr standard unchanged at 35 ug/m3. That would leave the Wasatch Front without any benefit at all.
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