| WASHINGTON
- August 20 - On the final day for the public to weigh in on a proposal to sharply reduce diesel pollution, public health and environmental groups announced that more than 136,000 Americans have written to the EPA urging the Bush administration to follow through on its diesel cleanup proposal. The groups called on Utah Governor Mike Leavitt, who has been nominated to head the EPA, to publicly commit to writing the proposal-with key strengthening changes-into law no later than April 2004. As co-chair of the Western Regional Air Partnership, Governor Leavitt called on EPA in January 2003 to adopt regulations to clean up diesel heavy equipment and other non-road diesel engines.
"Americans overwhelmingly support tougher clean air safeguards," said U.S. PIRG Clean Air Advocate Emily Figdor. "But, so far, the Bush administration has weakened, not strengthened, protections from the harmful effects of air pollution," she continued.
According to the groups' estimates, at least 136,300 Americans wrote letters, signed postcards, and sent e-mail calling on the Bush administration to protect public health and follow through on the diesel proposal.
Diesel pollution aggravates asthma and other respiratory conditions, contributes to heart disease, and cuts short the lives of thousands of Americans each year. EPA recently concluded that diesel exhaust likely causes lung cancer at everyday levels of exposure. Diesel emissions also obscure visibility in national parks, damage plants, and pollute lakes and forests with acid rain.
"Diesel exhaust contains particulate matter or soot. These fine particles can be inhaled deeply into the lung and cause serious health effects, including decreased lung function and even premature death. Cleaning up harmful diesel pollution is one of the most important steps we can take to help millions of Americans breathe healthier air," said John L. Kirkwood, President and CEO of the American Lung Association.
"When it is finalized, the non-road diesel proposal will be a major step towards dramatically reducing the continuing public health toll from diesel pollution," said Richard Kassel, NRDC Senior Attorney and head of the organization's "Dump Dirty Diesels" Campaign.
The public health and environmental advocates expressed concern that the Bush administration would bow to industry pressure to weaken the rules, especially following the departure of EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, who had championed the regulation while the Administration simultaneously rolled back clean air rules for power plants and other smokestack industries. The groups said that the oil industry is lobbying to weaken the enforcement mechanisms in the diesel proposal, and diesel engine manufacturers are pressing for loopholes, exemptions, and further delay.
"While other vehicles have had to meet tough tailpipe standards, diesel engines have been free to belch toxic exhaust into the air," said Patricia Monahan, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The EPA deserves credit for trying to clean up these engines, but they should resist industry pressure to give small and large diesel vehicles the green light to keep polluting."
"EPA's diesel double standard is a hazard to public health. Because diesel exhaust is among the most dangerous sources of air pollution, EPA must address all remaining diesel loopholes and hold commercial marine vessels, locomotives, and stationary diesel engines to the same rigorous standards that other diesel engines are required to meet," said Environmental Defense Staff Attorney Janea Scott.
The Administration's proposal, released in May, covers the fuel and engines used to power diesel construction, farm, surface mining, and industrial equipment, a massive and long-overlooked source of air pollution. By requiring cleaner fuel and pollution controls comparable to the catalytic converters used on cars for decades, EPA's proposed rules would reduce pollution from new diesel equipment by more than 90 percent-a plan EPA says would eventually prevent more than 9,600 premature deaths each year. The proposal mirrors earlier clean air rules for diesel trucks and buses.
"Cleaning up diesel heavy equipment and fuel is a no-brainer. This is a huge source of pollution, but we have the tools to clean it up as long as the EPA doesn't bow to special interests," said Frank O'Donnell, executive director of the Clean Air Trust.
"Support for closing the heavy diesel equipment loophole is wide and deep," said David Tuft, special projects director at Breakthrough Technologies Institute. "EPA has heard from labor unions and faith-based organizations as well as the states and public health and environmental organizations. It's now time for the Administration to act on behalf of everyone who breathes," he continued.
EPA estimates that the rules would save more than $80 billion each year, while costing only $1.5 billion annually to implement. Most of the savings would come from averted health care costs, including asthma attacks, cancer, and premature deaths.
But "alternative" and "sensitivity" benefits analyses buried in the rule include the "senior death discount" and other scientifically unproven assumptions that slash the estimated benefits of the rule from $81 billion to $16 billion, eroding the case for future public health and environmental protections. The senior death discount, for instance, places a lower value on the lives of people over the age of 70 when determining the benefits of the rule, reducing them by 37 percent.
"All Americans deserve equal protection from the dangers of pollution," said Nat Mund, Washington representative for the Sierra Club. "Why then is the Bush administration placing a lower value on the lives of seniors? It doesn't make any sense."
In addition to calling on Governor Leavitt to support the rules, the groups said the Administration should speed up the cleanup, extend the standards to trains and ships, drop the "alternative" and "sensitivity" analyses that would undermine future public health and environmental regulations, reject industry's attempts to weaken the enforcement mechanisms and open up big loopholes in the rules, and finalize the rule early in 2004.
EPA has said that it will issue a final rule in April 2004.
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