Air standards have saved lives for decades

Air standards have saved lives for decades

Written by

Stephen A. Smith

2:16 AM, Feb. 15, 2011

As parents and grandparents, there are many things we worry about for our children. We hope they get the right education, are exposed to good influences, and, most of all, we want them to be healthy.

Having personally experienced a child struggling for breath during an asthma attack, I can assure you little else matters when children's health is at risk. This is why I'm so offended by a number of professional politicians' attempts to undermine life-saving protective health standards enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency.

President Richard Nixon, a Republican, formed the EPA in 1970 to be "a strong, independent agency" to "enforce environmental protection standards." Since its beginnings, EPA, working closely with scientists and health professionals, has made important advances for public health – from limiting lead exposure to improving air quality by reducing unhealthy soot, smog and other dangerous air pollutants. This is why the Clean Air Act has been a bipartisan success for more than 40 years.

Now, as before, we should rely on good science to show us what more we can do to protect our health and environment. Politicians, who are often doing the bidding of wealthy, dirty energy companies like oil and coal, should not interfere with scientists and health professionals. These politicians, under the benign-sounding banner of "regulation reform," are attempting to nefarious use our anxiety and frustrations during these tough economic times to prevent EPA from updating Clean Air Act safeguards based on new scientific data.

Ironically, it was this same political mindset of hostility to consumer-protection rules that allowed Wall Street to run wild with our money and caused much of the economic hardship we are all now experiencing. Just as we needed "cops on the beat" during the Wall Street scandals to control corporate greed, we need strong "cops on the beat" to control pollution to protect our health.

Here in Tennessee, we have seen

improvement in the air quality of our cities
and treasured places like the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park. Yet, some
politicians are attempting to roll back these
public-health gains by proposing broad
attacks on protective standards that reduce
levels of toxic heavy mercury, soot, smog
and uncontrolled carbon pollution in our
air. Indeed, one national politician is now
calling to dissolve EPA altogether.

Another sad irony of this radical agenda is
that strong, clearly defined standards
stimulate innovation and new economic
development. We have seen it time and
time again. When EPA set clear standards
for controlling acid rain, control companies
that make scrubbing equipment stepped
up with new technology that improved the
environment and created jobs at a cost
lower than the industry predicted.

Now, we have the opportunity to unleash a
new wave of clean energy innovation.
Tennessee is well-positioned to lead this
effort with billions of dollars of new
investments in solar manufacturing, clean
cars and new pollution control technologies.
To continue and accelerate new
investment, we need clear market signals
that investors can bank on as they grow the
clean technology industry. Attacking
protective health standards not only
endangers our children, but it also sends
the wrong market signals and endangers
economic growth.

Stephen A. Smith, DVM, is executive
director of the Southern Alliance for
Clean Energy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan
organization.