Trump administration rejects tougher standards on soot

WASHINGTON » The Trump administration on Monday rejected setting tougher standards on soot, the nation’s most widespread deadly air pollutant, saying the existing regulations remain sufficient even though some public health experts and environmental justice organizations had pleaded for stricter limits.

The agency retained the current thresholds for fine particle pollution for another five years, despite mounting evidence linking air pollution to lethal outcomes from respiratory illnesses, including covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Documents obtained by The Washington Post show the EPA has disregarded concerns raised by other administration officials that several of its air policy rollbacks would disproportionately affect minority and low-income communities. In its decision announced Monday, the Environmental Protection Agency maintained the Obama-era levels, set in 2012, are adequately protective of human health. Agency scientists had recommended lowering the annual particulate matter standard to between 8 and 10 micrograms per cubic meter in a draft report last year, citing estimates that reducing the limit to 9 could save between 9,050 and 34,600 lives a year.

The current national standards limit annual concentrations of soot and other chemicals to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. Emissions on specific days are allowed to be as high as 35 per cubic meter, a standard set 14 years ago. These fine particles - which measure less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or one-thirtieth the width of a human hair - can enter the lungs and bloodstream, causing inflammation that can lead to asthma, heart attacks and other illnesses.

During a call with reporters Monday, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the agency’s decision “comes after careful review of the most rigorous scientific evidence,” as well as consultation with the agency’s outside scientific advisors, consideration of tens of thousands of official comments and input from five public meetings.

“I got multiple recommendations,” he said, referring to the standards. “Every scientist can take a look a this and reach a different conclusion.”

Wheeler also said that particulate matter pollution has fallen during the Trump administration, that the nation’s levels remain five times below the global average and are lower than levels in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

“The U.S. now has some of the lowest fine particulate matter in the world,” he said.