"Scott Pruitt Plans to Radically Alter How Clean Air Standards Are Set"

"Human health is supposed to drive decisions on air quality standards, but the EPA administrator's new memo emphasizes economic cost and impact on energy development."

"EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said Thursday he wants to radically revise how basic, health-based national air quality standards are set, giving more weight to the economic costs of achieving them and taking into account their impacts on energy development.

Under the law, the standards, setting uniform goals for breathable air, are supposed to be reviewed periodically asking only one question: whether they are protective enough to ensure the health of even the most vulnerable people, based on the best available science.

A foundational feature of the landmark Clean Air Act, the setting of these standards based on health, and not cost or feasibility, was defended adamantly on the Senate floor in 1970 by the bill's main author, Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine, who declared: 'That concept and that philosophy are behind every page of the proposed legislation.'

It has withstood legal and political tests for a generation.

Pruitt's proposal would jettison it."

Nicholas Kusnetz reports for InsideClimate News May 10, 2018.

SEE ALSO:

"Pruitt To Hear Economic Arguments In Enforcing Clean Air Act" (AP)