Air assault

It’s essential that we all think about and work to protect what we breathe.

While driving along on a Houston freeway, ever gagged on the smell of rotten eggs? Or had an aged truck in front of you spew out a fog of black fumes making it hard to see through your windshield?

Noxious older vehicles on the road are a major contributor to the ring of brown pollution that sometimes stains our city’s horizon. “We’ve made tremendous progress on smoking tailpipes, and we still have much progress to be made,” according to Neil Carman, clean air program director at the Lone Star Chapter Sierra Club.

The cleaner the vehicles on the highway, the cleaner our air. Yet the laws and standards that have promoted progress are being diluted at both the federal and state level. This could leave us all gasping for air.

In a bow to industry, President Donald Trump is expected to revisit — and potentially weaken — vehicle emission standards, which require car manufacturers to build cleaner and more efficient vehicles. Our president has also set the stage for a weak regulatory environment in the federal budget, which included a 31 percent budget cut for the Environmental Protection Agency. That’s a larger reduction than for any other domestic agency.

Not to be outdone by the federal government, the state of Texas is following suit with its own assault on clean air. This past session the Legislature cut funding for a program to encourage large vehicles to become cleaner and more efficient. In addition, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed significant funds in this year’s budget designated for a program that helps get older, pollutant-spewing cars off the road. He also cut $6 million for air-quality planning at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Already our city has failed to meet the 2008 air quality standards set by the EPA and is expected to miss the new, stricter ones. While the “State of the Air” report by the American Lung Association found continued improvement in air quality nationwide in 2013-2015, Houston is one of four cities in the U.S. where the number of high-ozone days rose last year. Elevated ozone, a polite way of saying “smog,” has health consequences. Preventable asthma attacks among schoolchildren cost millions in local health care dollars over 10 years, according to a study by the city of Houston, Rice University and Houston Independent School District released in March. High ozone and nitrogen dioxide levels in the atmosphere can trigger attacks outdoors.

It’s essential that we all think about and work to preserve clean air. This is a problem that not only affects fence-line communities near refineries or near the Ship Channel. With a stiff southeasterly breeze this time of year, air quality becomes a concern for communities such as Conroe and The Woodlands.

Your letters, your appearances at town hall or city council meetings, your phone calls to the offices of political leaders at all levels of government are essential to ensuring our elected leaders understand that air quality is a critical public health issue. It’s more important than bathroom bill legislation. More important than even the contentious national immigration debate.

Industry must bear responsibility, too, and in large part has, leading and innovating compliance efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions.

But protecting our air doesn’t stop with a phone call or a meeting. Clean air is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. And protecting it is a round-the-clock vigil.