Protecting the Nation from Air Pollution cont'd

• Began the process to clean up pollutants to meet 1997 health standards. EPA began the long process toward getting air pollution levels reduced to those set in health-based standards of 1997 by announcing the formal list of counties with unhealthful levels of ozone and particulate pollution. In April, EPA issued the list of 474 counties, called “nonattainment” counties because they had either too much pollution to meet the 8-hour standard for ozone or contributed to another county’s ozone problem. In December, EPA followed with a similar list for 224 counties with too much particle pollution. States have three years to develop a plan to reduce emissions sufficiently to meet the 1997 standards.
  
• Announced rules to clean up the dirtiest diesel engines. Diesel exhaust is a noxious brew of waste that adds millions of tons of particles and ozonecausing chemicals into the air each year. In May 2004, EPA announced the final rules to clean up some of the dirtiest remaining diesel engines: diesel engines that power heavy equipment and other non-highway uses.11 These are engines that power large, familiar equipment, such as bulldozers and excavators used in construction, electric generators and forklifts used by industry, and tractors and irrigation pumps used in agriculture. Surprisingly, together they produce more diesel emissions than do all those trucks and buses on the highways. Particle pollution (measured as PM2.5) emissions from heavy equipment vehicles and engines accounted for 64 percent of transportation source emissions. They account for 19 percent of all emissions of nitrogen oxides, a key ingredient in forming ozone.12 EPA now requires manufacturers to provide cleaner new engines beginning in 2008 and completed by 2014. Fuel for these engines will have 99 percent less sulfur, phased in between 2007 and 2010.
  
• Provided scientific documentation of the need for stronger particle pollution standards. The basis of all the protections in the Clean Air Act is the impact of pollutants on human health. The Act requires the EPA to review the available research and determine if the current air pollution standards protect the public health with “an adequate margin of safety.” In October 2004, EPA published its most recent formal review of the current knowledge of the health effects of particle pollution in the Particulate Matter Criteria Document. Since 1997, EPA has sponsored millions of dollars in research into the health effects of these tiny particles, gaining much new insight into the mechanisms that wreak havoc on the body. Now that this review is complete, EPA begins the process of determining what the new standard should be in order to provide this legally guaranteed protection.