Soot output to continue, despite link to virus death rate

Trump administration denies the science on industrial emissions

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday declined to tighten controls on industrial soot emissions, disregarding an emerging scientific link between dirty air and COVID-19 death rates.

In one of the final policy moves of an administration that has spent the last four years weakening or rolling back more than 100 environmental regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency completed a regulation that keeps in place the current rules on tiny, lung-damaging industrial particles, known as PM 2.5, instead of strengthening them, even though the agency’s own scientists have warned of the links between the pollutants and respiratory illness.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is expected to announce the rule this afternoon on a telephone call to reporters, according to a person familiar with the matter.

He is scheduled to be joined by the governor and attorney general of West Virginia, who have urged President Donald Trump to loosen rules on coal pollution since he first launched his presidential campaign.

In announcing the proposed rule this spring, Wheeler said the scientific evidence was insufficient to merit tightening the current emissions rule.

“We believe the current standard is protective of public health,” he said. “Through the five-year review process we’ve identified a lot of uncertainties. Through those uncertainties we’ve identified that the current standard does not need to be changed.”

Trump’s political appointees rushed to finalize the soot rule this fall in hopes of locking in the standard, according to a person familiar with the matter. By law, the EPA is required every five years to review the latest science and update the soot standard. However, legal experts said that nothing could stop the incoming Biden administration from reviewing and tightening the standard sooner than that.

Public health experts say the rule defies scientific research, including the work of the EPA’s own public health experts, which indicates that PM 2.5 pollution contributes to tens of thousands of premature deaths annually, and that even a slight tightening of controls on fine soot could save thousands of American lives.

A spokesman for the EPA did not respond to emailed questions.

Francesca Dominici, a professor of biostatistics at Harvard University who led the study linking PM 2.5 pollution to COVID deaths, said she was “disappointed but not surprised” by the administration’s decision.

“This is highly irresponsible,” she said. “It follows this pattern of this administration ignoring science and scientists.”