Houston – Health professionals, scientists and local citizen groups called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to adopt stronger, health-based standards to limit ozone exposure during a public hearing today in Houston. Speaker after speaker urged EPA to tighten these standards to protect millions more Americans from the widespread and dangerous air pollutant.
The Houston hearing is one of three the EPA is holding today in Texas, Georgia, and Illinois to take comment on its proposal to modestly strengthen the current national air quality for ozone smog pollution. The ozone standard drives all efforts to clean up ozone pollution across the nation, by setting a health-based standard governing how much ozone is safe to breathe. Although the EPA is proposing to tighten the standard, the EPA failed to follow the recommendations of its independent scientific advisors who unanimously urged a more protective standard for ozone.
“Ozone air pollution is a serious air pollution problem in Houston, particularly for my patients,” said Stuart Abramson, MD, PhD, volunteer with the American Lung Association of the Central States. “I’ve seen kids who have required emergency treatment for asthma on high ozone days and kids that can’t play outside without having symptoms. These children need EPA to protect them from this dangerous and widespread pollutant.”
All 23 expert scientists on the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee agreed that, to protect public health, the EPA’s ozone standards needed to be much stronger. The Committee recommended that the ozone health standard should be set in the range of 0.060 to 0.070 parts per million (ppm). EPA has proposed to set the health standard within the range of 0.070-0.075 ppm, but the agency is also soliciting comment on keeping the current standard of 0.08 ppm, a move that polluters are pushing. Leaving the standards at their current levels would put the health of millions of Americans at risk.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Thoracic Society, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club, EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, and World Health Organization, among others, recommend much more protective ozone standards. Local groups including GHASP, Mothers for Clean Air, CLEAN and Texas Public Interest Research Group also support stronger ozone standards.
“As health professionals, it our duty to speak out to protect public health,” said Bonnie New, M.D., with Health Professionals for Clean Air. “Houston has some of the dirtiest air in the nation and Houston residents are increasingly burdened with the adverse health effects that go along with it. Health professionals all over the country are concerned that the agency will adopt a health standard that seriously misses the mark in protecting human health from ozone pollution.”
Research shows that breathing ozone at levels exisiting today threatens the health of millions of people across the nation, including those with asthma and other lung diseases, children, teenagers, the elderly and even healthy adults who work or exercise outdoors. There are several ways in which ozone damages the body, including coughing and asthma attacks severe enough to send people to the hospital and increasing susceptibility to respiratory infection. But new research warns that ozone can be even more dangerous that previously believed, that it can threaten normal lung development in children and can also lead to premature death.
“The extensive scientific research about ozone is clear: Breathing it can kill you,” said Ramon Alvarez, Ph.D., an air quality scientist for Environmental Defense. “Smog endangers human health at concentrations well below the current federal standard. We must protect those most at risk- our children, the elderly and people with asthma and other lung diseases.”
Big Oil, electric utilities, and other powerful interests that would be affected by stronger ozone standards are lobbying hard to convince EPA to keep the ozone standards as weak as possible or not change them at all.
“All we are asking for is that the EPA does its job, follows its own advice, and sets an ozone standard that protects people’s health. The current standard does not achieve protection, and the ranges that the EPA and the Bush administration are pushing are embarrassingly inadequate,” said Dr. Matthew Tejada, Ph.D., public interest advocate for Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG).
In addition to the health implications, conservationists are concerned about how increased ozone levels will affect park land and conservation efforts.
“Unless we reduce harmful levels of ozone, important natural areas like Big Thicket National Preserve, Little Lake Creek Wilderness Area, Brazos Bend State Park, and Sam Houston National Forest will degraded by smog,” said Brandt Mannchen, with the Houston Sierra Club. “In addition, Texas' major agricultural crops, like soybeans and cotton will suffer unacceptable damage.”
EPA is accepting public comments on its proposal through October 9 and must issue a final ozone standard by March 2008.
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American Lung Association is beginning our second century as the leading organization working to prevent lung disease and promote lung health. For more information or to support our work, call 1-800-LUNG-USA (1-800-586-4872) or log on to www.lungusa.org
Environmental Defense, a leading national nonprofit organization, represents more than 500,000 members. Since 1967, Environmental Defense has linked science, economics, law and innovative private-sector partnerships to create breakthrough solutions to the most serious environmental problems. www.environmentaldefense.org
Health Professionals for Clean Air works to bring the voice of the local health science community to air quality policy-making to ensure that our patients, their families, and their communities have air that is healthy to breathe.
Sierra Club's members and supporters are more than 1.3 million of your friends and neighbors. Inspired by nature we work together to protect our communities and the planet. www.sierraclub.org
TexPIRG (Texas Public Interest Research Group) is a statewide non-partisan, non-profit policy research and public advocacy organization. www.texpirg.org
