Particularly Dumb Particulate Complaints, and Reporting on Them

Joel Schwartz at TCS Daily justifiably decries the protests about, and the reporting on, the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent proposed standards for particles (or “particulate matter”):

When the Environmental Protection Agency cuts allowable particle pollution levels more than 45 percent, you might expect commendations from environmentalists and the press. You’d be disappointed.

EPA recently proposed reducing allowable daily levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from 65 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) down to 35 ug/m3. The change would nearly double the number of pollution monitoring locations that violate federal PM2.5 standards.

Environmentalists were unimpressed. Clean Air Watch complained “President Bush Gives Early Christmas Present to Smokestack Industries.” According to the American Lung Association “EPA Proposes ‘Status Quo’ Revisions to PM [Standards].”

Some newspapers didn’t do any better. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s front-page headline claimed “EPA barely budges on soot; Health advice disregarded” (another link to the same article is here–Ed.). According to the New York Times, EPA “modestly” reduced allowable PM2.5, and “largely ignored recommendations for tighter controls from its own scientists and from an independent panel of outside experts.” (the NYT articles is now behind its subscription wall).

A more realistic assessment is that EPA substantially tightened its PM2.5 standard, but by a bit less than its science advisory panel recommended, and not by nearly as much as environmentalists wanted. That this could be called “status quo” is a mark of how detached from reality the bizarre world of air pollution politics has become.

Let’s face it: “Bush doesn’t care about clean air, clean water, or climate change” (the last of which is a comical fiction) has been a favorite meme of environmentalists and their willing WORM (Worn-Out Reactionary Media) accomplices since the day George Bush was elected. No amount of improvement, which continues to be meaningful and steady, will change that perception, and any kind of progess will be discounted or ignored.

There is also a cultivated perception that our air and water are as dirty as ever. Environmentalists and environmental regulators are good at moving the goalposts, which makes it a bit difficult to get good long-term data, but it’s there if you dig hard enough. Here’s one set of examples–despite attempts to discount or ignore it, let on the record show the following (from Page 4 of the Ohio EPA’s 2003 annual report on the state’s air quality):

• Sites monitored for carbon monoxide levels show an average reduction of more than 70 percent since 1972.
• Sites monitored for sulfur dioxide have shown an average drop of 90 percent in the past 30 years.
• Sites monitored for nitrogen dioxide pollution have shown an average drop of 22 percent since 1974.
• Ozone levels in Ohio have been reduced by 27 percent since 1972.
• Lead levels decreased by more than 95 percent during the 1979-1998 period (after which rules for monitoring changed).
• Particulates 10 microns in diameter or smaller (PM10) decreased by 24 percent from 1989 through 2001.