EPA Will No Longer Consider Health-Related Monetary Benefits of Reducing Air Pollution

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will scrap its longstanding practice of calculating the economic benefits related to human health when it sets air pollution limits, according to a recently published rule. Instead, it will only consider the economic costs to industry.

Experts quoted in the media describe the change as worrisome, saying that it could lead to higher levels of air pollution and more sickness and deaths among Americans.

“I’m worried about what this could mean for health,” said Mary Rice, Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Respiratory Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in a Jan. 13 NPR article. “Especially for people with chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma and COPD, for kids whose lungs are still developing, and for older people, who are especially susceptible to the harmful effects of air pollution on the heart, lungs and the brain.”