Big Business Fights EPA Over New Regulations

The EPA is trying to update their air-quality rules, but they are running into opposition from big business. No surprise, but they way they explain their point of view is just ridiculous.

(The Hill)The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) said the EPA attempt to propose “source specific” regulations on particulate emissions — meaning that individual industries would be required to meet reduction targets — could “present great obstacles in the improvement of the nation’s transportation infrastructure.” And that, the group added, proposes a greater risk than the increased incidence of asthma or other breathing ailments due to particulate pollution.

“One-third more people die each year in motor-vehicle crashes than die of bronchitis and asthma combined,” ARTBA said.

18 other business groups have joined in opposition to the EPA's proposed new rules.

...including the National Association of Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chemistry Council and the Edison Electric Institute, have formed a coalition managed by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman to oppose the proposed rule.

You ask if any politicians are against this. As a matter of fact there is one from Texas, go figure, that has voiced concern that this will hurt business.

In a letter to the EPA, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) expressed his concern about the effects on businesses that a new fine-particulate pollution standard would have.

Notice he is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. I wonder who donates money to Congressman Barton? Maybe if the medical field wasn't three and four behind oil and energy this would be his message

Contradicting the claims made by the business groups, the American Medical Association wrote to the EPA that “the new evidence on harmful effects of [particulate matter] is substantial.”

The physicians organization, which had not weighed in on the particulate rules in 1997, the last time they were updated, called particulate pollutants a “national public-health problem.” The group urged the EPA to adopt tougher standards than proposed.

Environmental groups have charged the White House with interfering in the development of the rules, striking paragraphs from previous iterations that noted, for example, that people in poor communities often breathe dirtier air.

In its written comments, the New York City chapter of the American Lung Association called fine particulate matter “the nation’s deadliest pollutant” and urged the EPA to adopt tougher standards than now proposed.

The AMA, physicians and ALA, what do they know?