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href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348744968/camila-domonoske\">Camila Domonoske\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/1134404086/michael-copley\">Michael Copley\u003c/a>","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11964517":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11964517","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11964517","name":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin and Andrew Witherspoon","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11964447":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11964447","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11964447","name":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin, Emily Zentner and Andrew Witherspoon","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11964317":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11964317","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11964317","name":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin, Emily Zentner and Andrew Witherspoon ","isLoading":false},"byline_news_11958011":{"type":"authors","id":"byline_news_11958011","meta":{"override":true},"slug":"byline_news_11958011","name":"\u003ca 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FM","link":"/"}},"news_11980088":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11980088","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11980088","score":null,"sort":[1710963036000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"in-boost-for-electric-vehicles-epa-sets-strict-limits-on-tailpipe-emissions","title":"EPA Finalizes Strict New Rules Limiting Tailpipe Emissions in Boost for Electric Vehicles","publishDate":1710963036,"format":"standard","headTitle":"EPA Finalizes Strict New Rules Limiting Tailpipe Emissions in Boost for Electric Vehicles | KQED","labelTerm":{"term":253,"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>After nearly a year of frantic lobbying and debate, the EPA has finalized strict new rules on vehicle emissions that will push the auto industry to accelerate its transition to electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA expects that under the new rules, EVs could account for up to 56% of new passenger vehicles sold for model years 2030 through 2032, meeting a goal that \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/05/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-steps-to-drive-american-leadership-forward-on-clean-cars-and-trucks/\">President Biden set in 2021\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulations are a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to fight climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with investments the U.S. is making in battery and electric vehicle manufacturing, the auto regulations will help shift the U.S. away from relying on fossil fuels for transportation, a senior administration official said during a call with reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” Biden said in a statement, adding that the country will meet that goal “and race forward in the years ahead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Biden added that U.S. workers “will lead the world on autos making clean cars and trucks, each stamped ‘Made in America.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new rules require auto manufacturers to slash emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that are heating the planet, as well as air pollutants that contribute to soot and smog. The administration said the new standards will avoid more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions and deliver almost $100 billion in annual benefits, including $13 billion in health benefits as a result of less pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s going to have immediate benefits in improving air quality, but also improving people’s health,” Cara Cook, director of programs at the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, told reporters ahead of the EPA’s announcement. “So they’re not breathing in dirty air, especially for those who are living near major roadways and highways, heavy traffic [areas]. Those are the ones that are going to really experience a significant amount of benefits from these rules.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Entire fleets, not individual cars, must meet strict rules\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The rules cover light- and medium-duty vehicles — cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but not 18-wheelers — from model years 2027 to 2032.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For light-duty vehicles, the EPA expects the rules will result in an industry-wide average emissions target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, representing an almost 50% reduction compared to existing standards for model year 2026 vehicles. The agency expects the average CO2 emissions target for medium-duty vehicles to fall by 44%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Cara Cook, director of programs, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments\"]‘That’s going to have immediate benefits in improving air quality, but also improving people’s health. … especially for those who are living near major roadways and highways.’[/pullquote]The EPA rules are not written as an EV mandate or a ban on the sale of gas cars, like some states and other countries have adopted. Instead, the EPA sets standards that apply across an entire fleet — meaning an automaker still can make vehicles with higher emissions, as long as they also make enough very low or zero-emission vehicles that it averages out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means over the next decade, automakers can continue offering a range of vehicle types, but the “menu” available to consumers will shift to be cleaner overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules will likely drive a shift not just among automakers but among their suppliers and in infrastructure, said Thomas Boylan, regulatory director at the Zero Emission Transportation Association, which advocates for electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it creates a substantial tailwind in the EV market itself, but I think it’s even more pronounced throughout the supply chain” for things like parts manufacturing and charging infrastructure, Boylan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really that full supply chain that has an additional level of certainty with these types of rules.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA said consumers can also opt for gas-powered vehicles with particulate filters and gas-electric hybrids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electric vehicles have higher price tags, on average, than gas-powered vehicles, although the gap has been narrowing and federal tax credits sometimes exceed the difference. Consumer groups have expressed\u003ca href=\"https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/research/clean-vehicle-standards-deliver-benefits-for-consumers/\"> support\u003c/a> for the EPA’s rules, noting that EVs save drivers money over the life of the vehicle because it’s almost always cheaper to charge than to fuel up. Researchers last year found the proposed rule would\u003ca href=\"https://www.resources.org/common-resources/new-proposed-emissions-standards-for-passenger-vehicles-who-benefits-the-most/\"> save all drivers money\u003c/a>, with the biggest savings for lower-income Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Chris Harto, senior policy analyst for transportation and energy, Consumer Reports\"]‘This is one of the biggest pieces of climate regulation in history.’[/pullquote]The EPA said it expects the new rules will deliver fuel savings to consumers of up to $46 billion annually, plus savings on maintenance and repairs that the agency values at $16 billion annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the biggest pieces of climate regulation in history,” Chris Harto, senior policy analyst for transportation and energy at Consumer Reports, said on a call with reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to have opponents,” Harto added because the money consumers will save is “coming out of the pockets of the oil industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the rules also call for reducing other types of tailpipe pollution. A senior Biden administration official said those pollution regulations will reduce hospitalizations and prevent 2,500 premature deaths in 2055.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Auto industry asked for a slower start\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The auto industry is in the midst of a dramatic transformation, with virtually all major companies pivoting toward making electric vehicles — albeit at different speeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., EV sales increased by 50% last year to just under 10% of new car sales. Automakers are also looking to Europe and China, which have embraced the idea of an electric future and are shifting their global plans accordingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11980045,news_11974466,science_1991185\"]But U.S. charging infrastructure is not increasing fast enough to keep pace with EV growth. Most EVs for sale right now are luxury vehicles, with relatively fewer options on the cheaper end of the scale. And, significantly, legacy automakers are making far more money on their gas-powered vehicles than their EVs, some of which are not yet profitable at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing auto manufacturers, asked the EPA to adjust the timeline for the new rules, dialing down the ambition for the next few years and then cranking up the pace toward the end of the time frame. The United Auto Workers union made a similar appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The approach reflected what the Alliance calls a “Goldilocks problem”: Automakers see huge risks if they move too slowly \u003cem>or \u003c/em>too quickly toward EVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, the auto industry is not a monolith. All-electric automakers like Tesla and Rivian encouraged the EPA to set even more stringent rules. Dealers, who have generally been more skeptical of EVs than manufacturers, sharply criticized the EPA’s original proposed rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final rules the EPA settled on reflect the input from automakers, labor unions and car dealers, a senior administration official said. Manufacturers will be able to make more gradual cuts to emissions in the early years, the official said, but the rules will ultimately deliver the same reductions as the agency’s initial proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The oil industry is fundamentally opposed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The oil industry, meanwhile, has been an even more vocal critic of these rules and other policies promoting EVs. Rising adoption of electric vehicles is expected to reduce oil demand over time, although it will take decades for the global fleet of vehicles to turn over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil trade groups call the new EPA rule a ban on gas-powered cars, although the regulations allow the continued sale of gas vehicles. The American Petroleum Institute has\u003ca href=\"https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/blog/2023/07/11/epas-tailpipe-emissions-rule-threatens-freedom-reliability-security\"> said\u003c/a> the rule “threatens consumer freedom, energy reliability and national security.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which has spent millions on ads against the EPA rules and other policies, also criticized the EPA for not considering the environmental impact of manufacturing a giant battery or charging an EV. A\u003ca href=\"https://theicct.org/publication/a-global-comparison-of-the-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-combustion-engine-and-electric-passenger-cars/\"> large body of research\u003c/a> has found that even\u003ca href=\"https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1875764/\"> with those impacts factored in\u003c/a>, EVs are still\u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/driving-cleaner\"> vastly better for the planet\u003c/a> than comparable fossil fuel vehicles. It’s true, however, that larger, less efficient EVs have a bigger environmental footprint than smaller ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the oil industry’s opposition goes even further. The attorney general of Texas has previously\u003ca href=\"https://climatecasechart.com/case/texas-v-epa-2/\"> filed a lawsuit\u003c/a> challenging the EPA’s authority to set rules designed to promote electric vehicles. Multiple oil trade groups backed Texas in the case. The auto industry sided with the EPA, noting that carmakers are investing billions in going electric and that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a “national priority.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, cutting greenhouse gas emissions is a global priority. The world \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1218125835/climate-talks-end-on-a-first-ever-call-for-the-world-to-move-away-from-fossil-fu\">has now agreed\u003c/a> that transitioning away from fossil fuels is key to reducing the devastating impacts of climate change that, even in the best-case scenario, will disrupt ecosystems and human lives around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as the EPA sets rules designed to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels, carmakers and oil producers are responding very differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The auto industry sees a profitable zero-emissions future — if it can figure out how (and when) to get there. The oil industry is fighting to defend its core product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a call with reporters earlier this month, Chet Thompson, the CEO of the AFPM, lambasted media reports that the EPA was considering a “compromise” that would give the auto industry a few more years of more lenient standards, buying companies time to prepare for the EV transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson emphasized that the EPA rules would still fundamentally aim to make most cars sold in the U.S. run on batteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At 2032, it’s the same outcome,” Thompson said, frustrated. “This administration should not be calling that a compromise when, in fact, they want to take us to the same place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"The EPA expects that under the new rules, EVs could account for up to 56% of new passenger vehicles sold for model years 2030 through 2032, meeting a goal that President Biden set in 2021.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1710965993,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":40,"wordCount":1748},"headData":{"title":"EPA Finalizes Strict New Rules Limiting Tailpipe Emissions in Boost for Electric Vehicles | KQED","description":"The EPA expects that under the new rules, EVs could account for up to 56% of new passenger vehicles sold for model years 2030 through 2032, meeting a goal that President Biden set in 2021.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"EPA Finalizes Strict New Rules Limiting Tailpipe Emissions in Boost for Electric Vehicles","datePublished":"2024-03-20T19:30:36.000Z","dateModified":"2024-03-20T20:19:53.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sticky":false,"nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/348744968/camila-domonoske\">Camila Domonoske\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/people/1134404086/michael-copley\">Michael Copley\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11980088/in-boost-for-electric-vehicles-epa-sets-strict-limits-on-tailpipe-emissions","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After nearly a year of frantic lobbying and debate, the EPA has finalized strict new rules on vehicle emissions that will push the auto industry to accelerate its transition to electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA expects that under the new rules, EVs could account for up to 56% of new passenger vehicles sold for model years 2030 through 2032, meeting a goal that \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/05/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-steps-to-drive-american-leadership-forward-on-clean-cars-and-trucks/\">President Biden set in 2021\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The regulations are a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s efforts to fight climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Combined with investments the U.S. is making in battery and electric vehicle manufacturing, the auto regulations will help shift the U.S. away from relying on fossil fuels for transportation, a senior administration official said during a call with reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv>\n\u003cp>“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” Biden said in a statement, adding that the country will meet that goal “and race forward in the years ahead.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Biden added that U.S. workers “will lead the world on autos making clean cars and trucks, each stamped ‘Made in America.'”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new rules require auto manufacturers to slash emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that are heating the planet, as well as air pollutants that contribute to soot and smog. The administration said the new standards will avoid more than 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions and deliver almost $100 billion in annual benefits, including $13 billion in health benefits as a result of less pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s going to have immediate benefits in improving air quality, but also improving people’s health,” Cara Cook, director of programs at the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, told reporters ahead of the EPA’s announcement. “So they’re not breathing in dirty air, especially for those who are living near major roadways and highways, heavy traffic [areas]. Those are the ones that are going to really experience a significant amount of benefits from these rules.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Entire fleets, not individual cars, must meet strict rules\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The rules cover light- and medium-duty vehicles — cars, SUVs, vans and pickup trucks, but not 18-wheelers — from model years 2027 to 2032.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For light-duty vehicles, the EPA expects the rules will result in an industry-wide average emissions target of 85 grams of carbon dioxide per mile, representing an almost 50% reduction compared to existing standards for model year 2026 vehicles. The agency expects the average CO2 emissions target for medium-duty vehicles to fall by 44%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘That’s going to have immediate benefits in improving air quality, but also improving people’s health. … especially for those who are living near major roadways and highways.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Cara Cook, director of programs, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The EPA rules are not written as an EV mandate or a ban on the sale of gas cars, like some states and other countries have adopted. Instead, the EPA sets standards that apply across an entire fleet — meaning an automaker still can make vehicles with higher emissions, as long as they also make enough very low or zero-emission vehicles that it averages out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means over the next decade, automakers can continue offering a range of vehicle types, but the “menu” available to consumers will shift to be cleaner overall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules will likely drive a shift not just among automakers but among their suppliers and in infrastructure, said Thomas Boylan, regulatory director at the Zero Emission Transportation Association, which advocates for electric vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think it creates a substantial tailwind in the EV market itself, but I think it’s even more pronounced throughout the supply chain” for things like parts manufacturing and charging infrastructure, Boylan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really that full supply chain that has an additional level of certainty with these types of rules.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA said consumers can also opt for gas-powered vehicles with particulate filters and gas-electric hybrids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Electric vehicles have higher price tags, on average, than gas-powered vehicles, although the gap has been narrowing and federal tax credits sometimes exceed the difference. Consumer groups have expressed\u003ca href=\"https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/research/clean-vehicle-standards-deliver-benefits-for-consumers/\"> support\u003c/a> for the EPA’s rules, noting that EVs save drivers money over the life of the vehicle because it’s almost always cheaper to charge than to fuel up. Researchers last year found the proposed rule would\u003ca href=\"https://www.resources.org/common-resources/new-proposed-emissions-standards-for-passenger-vehicles-who-benefits-the-most/\"> save all drivers money\u003c/a>, with the biggest savings for lower-income Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘This is one of the biggest pieces of climate regulation in history.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Chris Harto, senior policy analyst for transportation and energy, Consumer Reports","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The EPA said it expects the new rules will deliver fuel savings to consumers of up to $46 billion annually, plus savings on maintenance and repairs that the agency values at $16 billion annually.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is one of the biggest pieces of climate regulation in history,” Chris Harto, senior policy analyst for transportation and energy at Consumer Reports, said on a call with reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s going to have opponents,” Harto added because the money consumers will save is “coming out of the pockets of the oil industry.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the rules also call for reducing other types of tailpipe pollution. A senior Biden administration official said those pollution regulations will reduce hospitalizations and prevent 2,500 premature deaths in 2055.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Auto industry asked for a slower start\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The auto industry is in the midst of a dramatic transformation, with virtually all major companies pivoting toward making electric vehicles — albeit at different speeds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., EV sales increased by 50% last year to just under 10% of new car sales. Automakers are also looking to Europe and China, which have embraced the idea of an electric future and are shifting their global plans accordingly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"news_11980045,news_11974466,science_1991185"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But U.S. charging infrastructure is not increasing fast enough to keep pace with EV growth. Most EVs for sale right now are luxury vehicles, with relatively fewer options on the cheaper end of the scale. And, significantly, legacy automakers are making far more money on their gas-powered vehicles than their EVs, some of which are not yet profitable at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing auto manufacturers, asked the EPA to adjust the timeline for the new rules, dialing down the ambition for the next few years and then cranking up the pace toward the end of the time frame. The United Auto Workers union made a similar appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The approach reflected what the Alliance calls a “Goldilocks problem”: Automakers see huge risks if they move too slowly \u003cem>or \u003c/em>too quickly toward EVs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, the auto industry is not a monolith. All-electric automakers like Tesla and Rivian encouraged the EPA to set even more stringent rules. Dealers, who have generally been more skeptical of EVs than manufacturers, sharply criticized the EPA’s original proposed rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final rules the EPA settled on reflect the input from automakers, labor unions and car dealers, a senior administration official said. Manufacturers will be able to make more gradual cuts to emissions in the early years, the official said, but the rules will ultimately deliver the same reductions as the agency’s initial proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The oil industry is fundamentally opposed\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The oil industry, meanwhile, has been an even more vocal critic of these rules and other policies promoting EVs. Rising adoption of electric vehicles is expected to reduce oil demand over time, although it will take decades for the global fleet of vehicles to turn over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oil trade groups call the new EPA rule a ban on gas-powered cars, although the regulations allow the continued sale of gas vehicles. The American Petroleum Institute has\u003ca href=\"https://www.api.org/news-policy-and-issues/blog/2023/07/11/epas-tailpipe-emissions-rule-threatens-freedom-reliability-security\"> said\u003c/a> the rule “threatens consumer freedom, energy reliability and national security.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, which has spent millions on ads against the EPA rules and other policies, also criticized the EPA for not considering the environmental impact of manufacturing a giant battery or charging an EV. A\u003ca href=\"https://theicct.org/publication/a-global-comparison-of-the-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-combustion-engine-and-electric-passenger-cars/\"> large body of research\u003c/a> has found that even\u003ca href=\"https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1875764/\"> with those impacts factored in\u003c/a>, EVs are still\u003ca href=\"https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/driving-cleaner\"> vastly better for the planet\u003c/a> than comparable fossil fuel vehicles. It’s true, however, that larger, less efficient EVs have a bigger environmental footprint than smaller ones.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the oil industry’s opposition goes even further. The attorney general of Texas has previously\u003ca href=\"https://climatecasechart.com/case/texas-v-epa-2/\"> filed a lawsuit\u003c/a> challenging the EPA’s authority to set rules designed to promote electric vehicles. Multiple oil trade groups backed Texas in the case. The auto industry sided with the EPA, noting that carmakers are investing billions in going electric and that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a “national priority.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, cutting greenhouse gas emissions is a global priority. The world \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1218125835/climate-talks-end-on-a-first-ever-call-for-the-world-to-move-away-from-fossil-fu\">has now agreed\u003c/a> that transitioning away from fossil fuels is key to reducing the devastating impacts of climate change that, even in the best-case scenario, will disrupt ecosystems and human lives around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And as the EPA sets rules designed to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels, carmakers and oil producers are responding very differently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The auto industry sees a profitable zero-emissions future — if it can figure out how (and when) to get there. The oil industry is fighting to defend its core product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a call with reporters earlier this month, Chet Thompson, the CEO of the AFPM, lambasted media reports that the EPA was considering a “compromise” that would give the auto industry a few more years of more lenient standards, buying companies time to prepare for the EV transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson emphasized that the EPA rules would still fundamentally aim to make most cars sold in the U.S. run on batteries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At 2032, it’s the same outcome,” Thompson said, frustrated. “This administration should not be calling that a compromise when, in fact, they want to take us to the same place.”\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11980088/in-boost-for-electric-vehicles-epa-sets-strict-limits-on-tailpipe-emissions","authors":["byline_news_11980088"],"categories":["news_8","news_356","news_248","news_1397"],"tags":["news_23716","news_19204","news_22457","news_21506","news_31508","news_3187","news_30923"],"affiliates":["news_253"],"featImg":"news_11980096","label":"news_253"},"news_11964517":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11964517","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11964517","score":null,"sort":[1697536802000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"in-detroit-a-magic-wand-makes-dirty-air-look-clean-and-lets-polluters-off-the-hook","title":"In Detroit, a 'Magic Wand' Makes Dirty Air Look Clean — and Lets Polluters Off the Hook","publishDate":1697536802,"format":"standard","headTitle":"In Detroit, a ‘Magic Wand’ Makes Dirty Air Look Clean — and Lets Polluters Off the Hook | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>In southeast Detroit, the Environmental Protection Agency says, the air is clean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert Shobe’s lungs tell a different story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like a lot of Detroiters, Shobe suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as COPD, a long-term lung ailment that flares up when the air is smoggy or smokey. On those days, Shobe said: “I probably am low on energy, and I feel like I’m seeing a haze in the air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traffic, industrial sources and meteorological conditions often worsen pollution in his part of town. One of Shobe’s closest neighbors is the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant, where Jeep Wagoneers roll off the line. Since opening a paint shop on the property just over two years ago, it has racked up eight air pollution violations and fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Shobe was baffled when he heard in May of 2023 that Detroit had three years of clean-air data, and that according to the EPA, the region met strict federal air-quality standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators for Wayne County, where Detroit is located, accomplished that feat by removing two of the highest-ozone days from their calculations. They could do that because they had identified a surprising source of dirty air: wildfires burning across the border, in other states and in Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using a little-known loophole in the Clean Air Act, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) had made the case to the EPA that pollution on those days stemmed from an exceptional event, defined as something uncontrollable, unlikely to recur and, often, natural: wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “exceptional events rule” allows the EPA to strike pollution caused by these events from the record, allowing regulators to meet clean-air goals on paper, without forcing local industry to comply with tighter pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964686\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964686\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man sits inside a home at a dinner table.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Robert Shobe, who lives adjacent to the Stellantis Mack Auto Assembly Plant, in Detroit, Michigan, on Oct. 3, 2023. Shobe suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which gets worse on days when the air is smoggy or smoky. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Michigan, a regulator referred to the process as a “magic wand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That wand is regularly, if quietly, being waved. An investigation by The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> found that state and local air-quality managers across the U.S. increasingly rely on the rule to meet air-quality goals because of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">review of federal data\u003c/a>, as well as thousands of pages of regulatory records, shows that at least 21 million people, including in Michigan, now live and breathe \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/final-agency-actions-215474/\">in areas where the EPA has forgiven pollution (DOC)\u003c/a> from at least one “exceptional event,” often a wildfire, since the law took effect. Public contracts and correspondence also reveal how local governments have spent millions in taxpayer dollars to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">seek forgiveness for pollution (DOC)\u003c/a> related to “exceptional events,” helped at times by industry lobbyists, who pushed for the expansion of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.levernews.com/oil-lobby-pushed-pollution-loophole-for-wildfire-smoke/\">loophole in the Clean Air Act\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964684\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-800x674.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"674\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-800x674.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-1020x859.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-160x135.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>From the mountain west to the Rust Belt and into the south, utility, energy and business advocates have worked to promote the rule’s use, aiming to avoid costly emission controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It isn’t just industry that benefits, said John Walke, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The nonprofit environmental advocacy organization has sued the EPA over its interpretation of the rule. “Loopholes and exceptions [like this one] are treated as get-out-of-jail-free cards for politicians who are balancing economic activities and development with the need for clean air and public health,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In and out of limbo\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Detroit was on tenterhooks. The region had been struggling toward clean air since 2015, when the EPA last lowered the healthy standard for ozone. State officials argued to the EPA that the region had improved enough to meet air-quality goals. Just in case, they were ready to enact tighter and more costly pollution controls in southeast Michigan, as well as a new vehicle inspection program — an unpopular idea in the Motor City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964685\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-800x743.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"743\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-800x743.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-1020x948.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-160x149.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then air-pollution numbers spiked in Shobe’s neighborhood in June and July of 2022, stalling progress with the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Publicly, the Michigan Manufacturers Association, a 120-year-old, politically powerful trade group, warned that “limbo” about Detroit’s air-quality designation would “dampen business growth in the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air regulators and government officials heeded that warning. Behind the scenes, despite the persistent problems with Detroit’s air and the health consequences for members of the public like Shobe, they worked under tight deadlines to obtain Detroit’s clean bill of air health, emails show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Top officials from the office of governor Gretchen Whitmer sought meetings with regulators, beginning in July of last year. The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), a regional planning partnership, joined the effort. In October, an air-quality specialist with the environment, Great Lakes and energy department wrote to counterparts at the council: “We know that conversations are continuing to be had ‘at the White House level’ about Detroit ozone.” In November, lobbyist Mary Beth McGowan emailed SEMCOG staffers about a call between the governor’s chief of staff and the EPA’s deputy administrator, Janet McCabe. The call appears on McCabe’s public calendar on November 21. By January of 2023, Michigan had assembled its “demonstration” of an exceptional event. Southeast Michigan’s last-ditch effort to receive a passing grade for its air quality had taken only a few months to assemble. By March of this year, the EPA indicated it would work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One scientist has called the demonstration “a challenging one to review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my opinion, the evidence that the days described were impacted by smoke due to wildfires was limited,” said Dan Jaffe, a professor of atmospheric and environmental chemistry at the University of Washington-Bothell who has advised the EPA, states including Louisiana and private companies on the movement and makeup of ozone pollution. “And I understand why the community has concerns over that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Responding to Jaffe’s comment, the EPA wrote that the “rationale for approving Michigan’s demonstration [is] consistent” with the exceptional events rule. The EPA also said it objects to the word “loophole,” arguing it “delegitimizes the process established by Congress in the Clean Air Act and implemented by EPA.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964688\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964688\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white house with a black door and steps.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A ‘Justice for Beniteau Street Residents’ sign hangs in a neighbor’s home across the street from Robert Shobe’s home. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics of the exceptional events rule say the implications of the conversations among regulators, lobbyists and high-ranking government officials like the ones in Michigan are significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Anytime you bring politics into a decision like this, it can skew the decision-making,” said Nick Leonard, an attorney with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in Michigan who reviewed the emails. Pointing to the potential harm to people like Robert Shobe, Leonard has sued the EPA over Detroit’s redesignation and the exceptional event decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his opinion, Michigan regulators “don’t want to enact more stringent regulations on some of the major industry in the area, many of which are auto-assembly plants and a very powerful political force in Michigan and nationally.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michigan air-quality regulators declined to be interviewed, as did the Michigan governor’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA declined to comment on pending litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Shocking and unseemly’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In other parts of the country, industry and economic interests are involved in making these cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators have approached the EPA about exceptional events, or actually made filings, in at least 29 states. Emails and documents show that in more than half of those states, lobbyists and business groups weighed in on those efforts. In some places, private industry is paying to support these requests, revealing a close-knit effort between local authorities and businesses to protect the status quo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Midwest Ozone Group, a powerful collective of utility companies and trade organizations that regularly opposes ozone controls, wrote public comments and sought meetings with regulators on wildfire exceptional events in western Michigan, Cook County, Illinois, and Cincinnati, Ohio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964691\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964691\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white man wearing a blue shirt sits down inside.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Leonard at his home in Detroit, Michigan, on Oct. 6, 2023. Leonard is suing the EPA over the agency’s clean air determination for Detroit. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Kentucky, one member of the group, Louisville Gas and Electric (LGE), a for-profit company, paid for an exceptional event analysis blaming excess ozone pollution on the \u003ca href=\"https://dffm.az.gov/2020-wildfire-season-one-worst-decade\">2020 wildfires in Arizona\u003c/a>. Emails describe meetings about the analysis among regulators, the utility and a local chamber of commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the first time LGE indicated interest in exceptional events; it didn’t surprise Michelle King, the assistant director of the Louisville metro air pollution control district. The power sector is “very savvy,” she said, adding that such companies “understood the implications of what an exceptional event would or wouldn’t do with regard to our area’s non-attainment, and then the effect that that would have on them.” In the end, the district did not formally submit the analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964689\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964689\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A wide view of a complex with railroad tracks.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Part of a complex encompassing both the North Assembly and the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant in Detroit, Michigan, on Oct. 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, representing major refiners like ExxonMobil, regional midstream companies, and marketing firms, paid for an exceptional event filing in Louisiana in 2017. That demonstration allowed the five-parish Baton Rouge area to meet its air-quality goals for the first time, affecting 800,000 people. It also let local polluters avoid tougher regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are going full bore on this one,” wrote Vivian Aucoin, a senior scientist for the Louisiana department of environmental quality, in an email from October 2017. “Use whatever or whoever you need to get the information we need to prove” that wildfires were to blame, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aucoin, who now goes by Vivian Johnson, said that in lieu of payment for violations, industry trade groups in Louisiana “often” pay for “beneficial environmental projects.” In this case, “the state didn’t have the money we needed,” she said. “And so their industry members bellied up to the bar and paid for the modelling that needed to be done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association did not return a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about industry involvement in Louisiana, the EPA said “[f]or questions about how air agencies prepare their demonstrations, including coordination with industry or other parties, EPA recommends those questions be directed to specific air agencies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think people understand the degree to which there’s such a cozy, tightly woven tapestry of relationships between regulated industries and their regulators,” said John Walke, with the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is “an entirely rational undertaking by these industries and their lawyers and their lobbyists,” he said. “There’s no downside to them crying chicken or being wrong because at worst, the agency doesn’t bite, but at best they express interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope that it is shocking and unseemly to the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Millions of taxpayer dollars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Removing bad air days from the record isn’t cheap. States are spending millions of taxpayer dollars to get pollution forgiven, according to public contracts and requests. Local regulators regularly complain that applying for exceptional events is expensive and time-consuming. The reports filed to the EPA can often run into hundreds of pages with detailed scientific analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The price of filing for an exceptional event appears to range widely, depending on the scope and complexity of the work, as well as the cost of external consultants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) estimated that one filing cost as much as $20,000 and 200 hours to prepare. At a congressional hearing in 2017, a Wyoming state regulator estimated “that it would take about 15 months and contractor assistance at a cost of over $150,000 to produce just one” demonstration for ozone-related to wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clearer picture emerges when consultants get involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has committed to spending nearly $5 million across 19 contracts since 2018, toward work to improve exceptional event modeling and monitoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Texas is waiting to hear from the EPA about two open requests: one to exclude pollution related to wind in the El Paso area, and the other to exclude some smog pollution around Houston because of wildfires, mostly in neighboring gulf states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a written response to questions, TCEQ said that it “routinely” conducts research, and that it “disagrees with the assertion that the exceptional events rule prioritizes any entity over public health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, local air officials have mounted a sustained campaign to take advantage of exceptional events, including arguing that wildfires are beyond local control. In 2021, the county filed 17 exceptional event determinations with federal regulators; the EPA rejected five of them, and declined to weigh in on the rest. All told, Clark County has approved spending more than $3.3 million over a nine-year period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s pushed to the regional level and we’re supposed to solve it. We cannot solve it alone,” said Jodi Bechtel, an assistant director for the department of environment and sustainability in Clark County, Nevada. “We’re lucky to have the resources to be able to put these exceptional event packages together and commit these millions of dollars to at least maybe do them if we need them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has filed more requests than California, where the state air resources board (CARB) has invested significant resources in developing analysis and requests, even as staffers point out it takes months to work with the EPA on demonstrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that probably makes it seem to people like we’re taking advantage of a loophole, to try to show attainment,” said Michael Benjamin, chief of the air quality planning and science division at CARB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But breathing clean air isn’t the same thing as meeting federal air requirements, he said, which carries legal consequences: “If there weren’t such significant repercussions for not attaining, like the potential loss of federal highway funds and so on, then there wouldn’t be that pressure on air districts and CARB to really take full advantage of exceptional events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michigan regulators reckoned they spent 250 hours writing last year’s exceptional event demonstration — but declined to provide a cost estimate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It still happened’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In July, the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and the Sierra Club \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-07/23-3583_Documents.pdf\">sued (PDF) \u003c/a>the EPA over its decision to move Detroit back into attainment. A successful lawsuit could force regulators to reimpose the controls they drafted. It would also require them to be more transparent about Detroit’s air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Excluding data to say that the air is clean is a “disservice to the public and the community,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents Detroit. “Either we’re for addressing the climate crisis or we’re not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964687\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964687\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man wearing a cap and t-shirt sits in a chair looking to the side.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shobe has his own air monitor on his porch. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Tlaib argues that the federal government should do better at counting the cumulative impacts of pollution. “I want those that are making these decisions and these exceptions and carve-outs to know that jobs don’t cure cancer,” she said. “They don’t stop the increase of asthma among our children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michigan officials didn’t comment, but pointed to a recently published blog post where the department of environment, Great Lakes, and energy \u003ca href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/egle/newsroom/mi-environment/2023/08/28/wildfire-smoke-and-pollution-a-primer-on-michigans-attainment-status\">wrote\u003c/a> that it “remains to be seen” whether the state will apply for more exemptions this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In southeast Detroit, Robert Shobe has his own air monitor on his porch. He trusts it, he said, regardless of what the official numbers say about two smoggy days last June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It still happened,” he said. The policies don’t make sense to him; he said it’s wrong “that they can have a way to take away something that you have documentation of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a throwaway, I’m in a sacrifice zone,” he said. “We complain, we file complaints, we’re doing everything we can to fight for ourselves, and they hide behind loopholes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Across the US, local governments, lobbyists and industry have spent millions to get wildfire pollution excluded from the record. People like Robert Shobe pay the price.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1697584365,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":63,"wordCount":2883},"headData":{"title":"In Detroit, a 'Magic Wand' Makes Dirty Air Look Clean — and Lets Polluters Off the Hook | KQED","description":"Across the US, local governments, lobbyists and industry have spent millions to get wildfire pollution excluded from the record. People like Robert Shobe pay the price.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"In Detroit, a 'Magic Wand' Makes Dirty Air Look Clean — and Lets Polluters Off the Hook","datePublished":"2023-10-17T10:00:02.000Z","dateModified":"2023-10-17T23:12:45.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin and Andrew Witherspoon","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11964517/in-detroit-a-magic-wand-makes-dirty-air-look-clean-and-lets-polluters-off-the-hook","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In southeast Detroit, the Environmental Protection Agency says, the air is clean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert Shobe’s lungs tell a different story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like a lot of Detroiters, Shobe suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, also known as COPD, a long-term lung ailment that flares up when the air is smoggy or smokey. On those days, Shobe said: “I probably am low on energy, and I feel like I’m seeing a haze in the air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traffic, industrial sources and meteorological conditions often worsen pollution in his part of town. One of Shobe’s closest neighbors is the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant, where Jeep Wagoneers roll off the line. Since opening a paint shop on the property just over two years ago, it has racked up eight air pollution violations and fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Shobe was baffled when he heard in May of 2023 that Detroit had three years of clean-air data, and that according to the EPA, the region met strict federal air-quality standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators for Wayne County, where Detroit is located, accomplished that feat by removing two of the highest-ozone days from their calculations. They could do that because they had identified a surprising source of dirty air: wildfires burning across the border, in other states and in Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using a little-known loophole in the Clean Air Act, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) had made the case to the EPA that pollution on those days stemmed from an exceptional event, defined as something uncontrollable, unlikely to recur and, often, natural: wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “exceptional events rule” allows the EPA to strike pollution caused by these events from the record, allowing regulators to meet clean-air goals on paper, without forcing local industry to comply with tighter pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964686\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964686\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man sits inside a home at a dinner table.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__17-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Robert Shobe, who lives adjacent to the Stellantis Mack Auto Assembly Plant, in Detroit, Michigan, on Oct. 3, 2023. Shobe suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which gets worse on days when the air is smoggy or smoky. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Michigan, a regulator referred to the process as a “magic wand.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That wand is regularly, if quietly, being waved. An investigation by The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> found that state and local air-quality managers across the U.S. increasingly rely on the rule to meet air-quality goals because of wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">review of federal data\u003c/a>, as well as thousands of pages of regulatory records, shows that at least 21 million people, including in Michigan, now live and breathe \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/final-agency-actions-215474/\">in areas where the EPA has forgiven pollution (DOC)\u003c/a> from at least one “exceptional event,” often a wildfire, since the law took effect. Public contracts and correspondence also reveal how local governments have spent millions in taxpayer dollars to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">seek forgiveness for pollution (DOC)\u003c/a> related to “exceptional events,” helped at times by industry lobbyists, who pushed for the expansion of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.levernews.com/oil-lobby-pushed-pollution-loophole-for-wildfire-smoke/\">loophole in the Clean Air Act\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964684\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-800x674.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"674\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-800x674.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-1020x859.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1-160x135.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-4-1.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>From the mountain west to the Rust Belt and into the south, utility, energy and business advocates have worked to promote the rule’s use, aiming to avoid costly emission controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It isn’t just industry that benefits, said John Walke, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The nonprofit environmental advocacy organization has sued the EPA over its interpretation of the rule. “Loopholes and exceptions [like this one] are treated as get-out-of-jail-free cards for politicians who are balancing economic activities and development with the need for clean air and public health,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>In and out of limbo\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, Detroit was on tenterhooks. The region had been struggling toward clean air since 2015, when the EPA last lowered the healthy standard for ozone. State officials argued to the EPA that the region had improved enough to meet air-quality goals. Just in case, they were ready to enact tighter and more costly pollution controls in southeast Michigan, as well as a new vehicle inspection program — an unpopular idea in the Motor City.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964685\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-800x743.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"743\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-800x743.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-1020x948.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1-160x149.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-5-1.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then air-pollution numbers spiked in Shobe’s neighborhood in June and July of 2022, stalling progress with the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Publicly, the Michigan Manufacturers Association, a 120-year-old, politically powerful trade group, warned that “limbo” about Detroit’s air-quality designation would “dampen business growth in the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Air regulators and government officials heeded that warning. Behind the scenes, despite the persistent problems with Detroit’s air and the health consequences for members of the public like Shobe, they worked under tight deadlines to obtain Detroit’s clean bill of air health, emails show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Top officials from the office of governor Gretchen Whitmer sought meetings with regulators, beginning in July of last year. The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments (SEMCOG), a regional planning partnership, joined the effort. In October, an air-quality specialist with the environment, Great Lakes and energy department wrote to counterparts at the council: “We know that conversations are continuing to be had ‘at the White House level’ about Detroit ozone.” In November, lobbyist Mary Beth McGowan emailed SEMCOG staffers about a call between the governor’s chief of staff and the EPA’s deputy administrator, Janet McCabe. The call appears on McCabe’s public calendar on November 21. By January of 2023, Michigan had assembled its “demonstration” of an exceptional event. Southeast Michigan’s last-ditch effort to receive a passing grade for its air quality had taken only a few months to assemble. By March of this year, the EPA indicated it would work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One scientist has called the demonstration “a challenging one to review.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In my opinion, the evidence that the days described were impacted by smoke due to wildfires was limited,” said Dan Jaffe, a professor of atmospheric and environmental chemistry at the University of Washington-Bothell who has advised the EPA, states including Louisiana and private companies on the movement and makeup of ozone pollution. “And I understand why the community has concerns over that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Responding to Jaffe’s comment, the EPA wrote that the “rationale for approving Michigan’s demonstration [is] consistent” with the exceptional events rule. The EPA also said it objects to the word “loophole,” arguing it “delegitimizes the process established by Congress in the Clean Air Act and implemented by EPA.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964688\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964688\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white house with a black door and steps.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__39-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A ‘Justice for Beniteau Street Residents’ sign hangs in a neighbor’s home across the street from Robert Shobe’s home. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Critics of the exceptional events rule say the implications of the conversations among regulators, lobbyists and high-ranking government officials like the ones in Michigan are significant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Anytime you bring politics into a decision like this, it can skew the decision-making,” said Nick Leonard, an attorney with the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in Michigan who reviewed the emails. Pointing to the potential harm to people like Robert Shobe, Leonard has sued the EPA over Detroit’s redesignation and the exceptional event decision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his opinion, Michigan regulators “don’t want to enact more stringent regulations on some of the major industry in the area, many of which are auto-assembly plants and a very powerful political force in Michigan and nationally.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michigan air-quality regulators declined to be interviewed, as did the Michigan governor’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA declined to comment on pending litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Shocking and unseemly’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In other parts of the country, industry and economic interests are involved in making these cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators have approached the EPA about exceptional events, or actually made filings, in at least 29 states. Emails and documents show that in more than half of those states, lobbyists and business groups weighed in on those efforts. In some places, private industry is paying to support these requests, revealing a close-knit effort between local authorities and businesses to protect the status quo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Midwest Ozone Group, a powerful collective of utility companies and trade organizations that regularly opposes ozone controls, wrote public comments and sought meetings with regulators on wildfire exceptional events in western Michigan, Cook County, Illinois, and Cincinnati, Ohio.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964691\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964691\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white man wearing a blue shirt sits down inside.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis_2__27-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Leonard at his home in Detroit, Michigan, on Oct. 6, 2023. Leonard is suing the EPA over the agency’s clean air determination for Detroit. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Kentucky, one member of the group, Louisville Gas and Electric (LGE), a for-profit company, paid for an exceptional event analysis blaming excess ozone pollution on the \u003ca href=\"https://dffm.az.gov/2020-wildfire-season-one-worst-decade\">2020 wildfires in Arizona\u003c/a>. Emails describe meetings about the analysis among regulators, the utility and a local chamber of commerce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was the first time LGE indicated interest in exceptional events; it didn’t surprise Michelle King, the assistant director of the Louisville metro air pollution control district. The power sector is “very savvy,” she said, adding that such companies “understood the implications of what an exceptional event would or wouldn’t do with regard to our area’s non-attainment, and then the effect that that would have on them.” In the end, the district did not formally submit the analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964689\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964689\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A wide view of a complex with railroad tracks.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__47-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Part of a complex encompassing both the North Assembly and the Stellantis Mack Assembly Plant in Detroit, Michigan, on Oct. 3, 2023. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, representing major refiners like ExxonMobil, regional midstream companies, and marketing firms, paid for an exceptional event filing in Louisiana in 2017. That demonstration allowed the five-parish Baton Rouge area to meet its air-quality goals for the first time, affecting 800,000 people. It also let local polluters avoid tougher regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are going full bore on this one,” wrote Vivian Aucoin, a senior scientist for the Louisiana department of environmental quality, in an email from October 2017. “Use whatever or whoever you need to get the information we need to prove” that wildfires were to blame, she added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aucoin, who now goes by Vivian Johnson, said that in lieu of payment for violations, industry trade groups in Louisiana “often” pay for “beneficial environmental projects.” In this case, “the state didn’t have the money we needed,” she said. “And so their industry members bellied up to the bar and paid for the modelling that needed to be done.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association did not return a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about industry involvement in Louisiana, the EPA said “[f]or questions about how air agencies prepare their demonstrations, including coordination with industry or other parties, EPA recommends those questions be directed to specific air agencies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think people understand the degree to which there’s such a cozy, tightly woven tapestry of relationships between regulated industries and their regulators,” said John Walke, with the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is “an entirely rational undertaking by these industries and their lawyers and their lobbyists,” he said. “There’s no downside to them crying chicken or being wrong because at worst, the agency doesn’t bite, but at best they express interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hope that it is shocking and unseemly to the public.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Millions of taxpayer dollars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Removing bad air days from the record isn’t cheap. States are spending millions of taxpayer dollars to get pollution forgiven, according to public contracts and requests. Local regulators regularly complain that applying for exceptional events is expensive and time-consuming. The reports filed to the EPA can often run into hundreds of pages with detailed scientific analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The price of filing for an exceptional event appears to range widely, depending on the scope and complexity of the work, as well as the cost of external consultants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) estimated that one filing cost as much as $20,000 and 200 hours to prepare. At a congressional hearing in 2017, a Wyoming state regulator estimated “that it would take about 15 months and contractor assistance at a cost of over $150,000 to produce just one” demonstration for ozone-related to wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clearer picture emerges when consultants get involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has committed to spending nearly $5 million across 19 contracts since 2018, toward work to improve exceptional event modeling and monitoring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Texas is waiting to hear from the EPA about two open requests: one to exclude pollution related to wind in the El Paso area, and the other to exclude some smog pollution around Houston because of wildfires, mostly in neighboring gulf states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a written response to questions, TCEQ said that it “routinely” conducts research, and that it “disagrees with the assertion that the exceptional events rule prioritizes any entity over public health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, local air officials have mounted a sustained campaign to take advantage of exceptional events, including arguing that wildfires are beyond local control. In 2021, the county filed 17 exceptional event determinations with federal regulators; the EPA rejected five of them, and declined to weigh in on the rest. All told, Clark County has approved spending more than $3.3 million over a nine-year period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s pushed to the regional level and we’re supposed to solve it. We cannot solve it alone,” said Jodi Bechtel, an assistant director for the department of environment and sustainability in Clark County, Nevada. “We’re lucky to have the resources to be able to put these exceptional event packages together and commit these millions of dollars to at least maybe do them if we need them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No state has filed more requests than California, where the state air resources board (CARB) has invested significant resources in developing analysis and requests, even as staffers point out it takes months to work with the EPA on demonstrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I know that probably makes it seem to people like we’re taking advantage of a loophole, to try to show attainment,” said Michael Benjamin, chief of the air quality planning and science division at CARB.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But breathing clean air isn’t the same thing as meeting federal air requirements, he said, which carries legal consequences: “If there weren’t such significant repercussions for not attaining, like the potential loss of federal highway funds and so on, then there wouldn’t be that pressure on air districts and CARB to really take full advantage of exceptional events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michigan regulators reckoned they spent 250 hours writing last year’s exceptional event demonstration — but declined to provide a cost estimate.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘It still happened’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In July, the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center and the Sierra Club \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-07/23-3583_Documents.pdf\">sued (PDF) \u003c/a>the EPA over its decision to move Detroit back into attainment. A successful lawsuit could force regulators to reimpose the controls they drafted. It would also require them to be more transparent about Detroit’s air quality.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Excluding data to say that the air is clean is a “disservice to the public and the community,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents Detroit. “Either we’re for addressing the climate crisis or we’re not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964687\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964687\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A Black man wearing a cap and t-shirt sits in a chair looking to the side.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/TheGuardian_Stellantis__30-2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shobe has his own air monitor on his porch. \u003ccite>(Brittany Greeson/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Tlaib argues that the federal government should do better at counting the cumulative impacts of pollution. “I want those that are making these decisions and these exceptions and carve-outs to know that jobs don’t cure cancer,” she said. “They don’t stop the increase of asthma among our children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michigan officials didn’t comment, but pointed to a recently published blog post where the department of environment, Great Lakes, and energy \u003ca href=\"https://www.michigan.gov/egle/newsroom/mi-environment/2023/08/28/wildfire-smoke-and-pollution-a-primer-on-michigans-attainment-status\">wrote\u003c/a> that it “remains to be seen” whether the state will apply for more exemptions this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In southeast Detroit, Robert Shobe has his own air monitor on his porch. He trusts it, he said, regardless of what the official numbers say about two smoggy days last June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It still happened,” he said. The policies don’t make sense to him; he said it’s wrong “that they can have a way to take away something that you have documentation of.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m a throwaway, I’m in a sacrifice zone,” he said. “We complain, we file complaints, we’re doing everything we can to fight for ourselves, and they hide behind loopholes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11964517/in-detroit-a-magic-wand-makes-dirty-air-look-clean-and-lets-polluters-off-the-hook","authors":["byline_news_11964517"],"categories":["news_19906","news_8"],"tags":["news_2928","news_255","news_21506","news_33329","news_28199"],"featImg":"news_11964704","label":"news"},"news_11964447":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11964447","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11964447","score":null,"sort":[1697450447000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"what-is-the-exceptional-events-rule-the-loophole-letting-us-regulators-wipe-air-pollution-from-the-record","title":"What Is the Exceptional Events Rule? The Loophole Letting US Regulators Wipe Air Pollution From the Record","publishDate":1697450447,"format":"standard","headTitle":"What Is the Exceptional Events Rule? The Loophole Letting US Regulators Wipe Air Pollution From the Record | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>When smoke from the Camp Fire poured down over northern California in 2018, schools across the region closed to protect kids from breathing dangerous air. When wildfires blanketed the Willamette Valley with soot and ash in 2020, hundreds of Oregonians sought urgent care for shortness of breath, headaches and asthma. When Canadian wildfire smoke made its way to Michigan last year, ozone levels in Detroit spiked to levels that caused officials to warn residents sensitive to air pollution to take extra care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In each of those cases, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal agency that oversees air quality, allowed local air regulators to strike the pollution caused by these events from air-quality records, using a mostly overlooked legal tool called the “exceptional events rule,” which allows pollution caused by “uncontrollable” events to be forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> found that local regulators are turning to the exceptional events rule for wildfires more and more often to reach air quality goals — goals that are harder to meet as the climate crisis gets worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The review of thousands of documents, which include regulatory filings, emails and scientific analyses, also found several examples of industry groups working hand in hand with local regulators to get these exemptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The increasing use of the rule for wildfires, experts say, not only obscures health risks to people across the U.S., but undermines the goals of the landmark Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nick Leonard, who directs the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in Detroit, Michigan, sees the problem in fairly simple terms: The growing threat of wildfire smoke is exacerbated by climate change. Climate change has been fueled by the oil and gas industry. Their lobbyists, in turn, have pushed states to use the exceptional events rule as much as possible, slowing progress to address air pollution at the local level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“EPA’s had a stake in this problem for a long time. States have had a stake in this problem for a long time. Private companies have had a stake in this problem for a long time,” Leonard said. “And now when that problem is coming home to roost, they’re saying, ‘Well, who could have seen this coming?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11964450\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1.png\" alt=\"Map showing smoke density \" width=\"1240\" height=\"1472\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1.png 1240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1-800x950.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1-1020x1211.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1-160x190.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1240px) 100vw, 1240px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Republican senator’s crusade\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The driving force behind the exceptional events rule was Jim Inhofe, the former Republican senator from Oklahoma who, for decades, \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/us-senate-man-climate-change-global-warming-hoax\">called climate change a hoax\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1998, air quality managers in his home state found themselves in a tough spot. A wildfire on Mexico’s drought-stricken Yucatán peninsula had sent acrid smoke north, and around that time Oklahoma City exceeded its pollution limits. If the soot and ozone stayed on the books, they’d have to tighten controls on known local polluters. Instead, they argued to the EPA that the pollution shouldn’t count because it came from a wildfire, and so was “natural” and “uncontrollable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA turned air quality managers down, to Inhofe’s frustration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964452\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964452\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281.jpg\" alt=\"Telephone pole tipped over, pulling down wires, amid smoky air\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fallen power line on Nunneley Road in Paradise, Butte County, on Nov. 13, 2018. \u003ccite>(Smoke lingers in the air in Paradise, California on November 13, 2018. Photograph: Anne Wernikoff/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He held several hearings and meetings, grilling the EPA. He thought local regulators should have more discretion to ignore pollution — including the kinds that are hard to control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until then, no formal rule in the Clean Air Act allowed that. The EPA did have a policy, infrequently used in the 1980s and 1990s, that allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control.” That wasn’t enough for the pro-business senator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inhofe’s years-long crusade succeeded. Once added to the Clean Air Act, the “exceptional events” rule enabled regulators to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from records used to make regulatory decisions. Since 2007, local officials have been able to request that pollution data be excluded from clean air determinations when it comes from an array of events, from volcanoes to fireworks to “unusual traffic circumstances,” and the fastest-growing event of all: wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The purpose of the amendment was deregulatory, to be sure,” said John Walke, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11964451\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1720\" height=\"906\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1.png 1720w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-800x421.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-1020x537.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-160x84.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-1536x809.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1720px) 100vw, 1720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A regulatory escape hatch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The exceptional events rule functions as a regulatory escape hatch. When soot and ozone drift in from “natural” sources like wildfires, regulators can ask the EPA for an exception. If the federal agency grants it, that air pollution is erased from the regulatory record and disregarded in regulatory decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local air officials often spend months, using publicly funded atmospheric modelling and meteorological data, to create hundreds of pages documenting why pollution exceedances shouldn’t count — sometimes with the help of industry-funded consultants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because justifying an exceptional event is complicated and expensive, guidance from the EPA directs regulators to apply the rule only when it has regulatory significance, including meeting federal air standards — or, in regulator speak, achieving “attainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attainment communicates to the public that the air meets conditions regulators have deemed healthy. It helps people decide where to live and work. The meeting of standards loosens both federal funding for transportation and pollution controls for factories.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What we studied, and what we found\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>No other rule works like exceptional events to discount recorded pollution from consideration by regulators. We requested hard-to-find EPA data about exceptional events. We reviewed thousands of pages of written material, including correspondence, materials related to contracting, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">what are called “demonstrations” (DOC)\u003c/a> of these events — basically, descriptions of toxic events regulators don’t want to be responsible for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our \u003ca href=\"https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2023/oct/16/smoke-screened-methodology/\">analysis \u003c/a>shows that:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since 2016, local regulators have flagged almost 700 exceptional events to the EPA. The agency agreed to adjust \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">the data\u003c/a> on 139 of them.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">The adjustments were allowed in more than 70 counties across 20 states.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">More than 21 million Americans live in areas where an adjustment \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/final-agency-actions-215474/\">allowed local regulators to claim (DOC)\u003c/a> the area had met strict national health standards or that the air was cleaner than it actually was.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">On three-fourths of the days exceptional events were reported, local governments pointed at wildfires in justifying their requests.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">Local regulators are turning to the exceptional events rule for wildfires more and more often to reach air quality goals. In 2016, 19 wildfire events were submitted to the EPA. In 2020, 65 were.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">Businesses and industry representatives lobbied local air regulators before an event was even considered, as happened in Kentucky, and worked together with them to file exceptional event requests, as happened in Louisiana.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The use of the exceptional events rule means U.S. air-quality data doesn’t reflect how safe it is to breathe, said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health scientist at the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our regulatory picture is really not keeping up with the true toll, the true health burden posed by air pollution and wildfire smoke,” he said. “And we really need to be taking into consideration the truth on the ground in terms of what exposures look like and what that means for public health across the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rule in practice lets regional regulators meet air quality goals without having to put additional demands on polluters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964465\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964465\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774.jpg\" alt=\"Trees engulfed in flames\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1438\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-800x599.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-1536x1150.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters battle the Mosquito Fire near Foresthill, Placer County, on Sept. 7, 2022. \u003ccite>(Andrew Nixon/CapRadio)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re just pretending like it’s just not happening,” said Sanjay Narayan, the managing attorney for the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “The pollution is not in the air from sort of a regulatory perspective, which is the way in which things become invisible. All of this is invisible unless you trawl through all of these reports.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to questions, a spokesperson for the EPA, Khanya Brann, said the agency “takes our decisions related to exceptional events seriously. We recognize that even when pollution (such as wildfire smoke) is not something that an air agency can control, people still are breathing the polluted air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA said it requires mitigation plans where exceptional events recur. Those plans include efforts to educate and notify the public about the pollution risk, as well as to take “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A growing loophole\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Soot, ash and other particulate matter drive health risks that are significant to pregnant people, children, outdoor workers, residents of leaky buildings and anyone with heart or lung ailments. Ozone produced by wildfire pollution carries an invisible threat, irritating and inflaming lungs; even short-term exposure above certain levels raises the risk of premature death. The federal Office of Management and Budget estimates that in an increasingly extreme climate\u003cb>,\u003c/b> \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OMB_Climate_Risk_Exposure_2022.pdf\">wildfire smoke exposure could increase federal health care expenditures (PDF)\u003c/a> by $128 million to $226 million each year by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to focus on solutions for wildfire smoke, because about 30% to 50% of our wildfires are directly attributed to climate change and increasing temperatures around the globe,” said Kari Nadeau, an immunologist who directs the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. \u003cb>“\u003c/b>No one is immune to this. Everyone can be affected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pedestrians\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Climate change has already created the conditions for more frequent and significant wildfires this year, from Maui to Quebec.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists and activists worry that the exceptional events rule can be exploited to avoid the costly efforts needed to address this growing crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Clean Air Act was passed by a nearly unanimous Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, it focused on pollution from soot-spewing smokestacks and freeways full of cars with tailpipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The soot from Canadian fires that choked skies from Chicago to Washington earlier this year was a sickly brown telltale for some of the same key pollutants the Clean Air Act aimed to fight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA has proposed lowering the standard for fine particulates. Soon, ozone standards could be tightened, too, a consensus recommendation of the agency’s top scientific advisers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry have told the EPA the exceptional events rule will be a key part of meeting ozone standards. States themselves say any moves to tighten particulate or ozone limits will be met with a greater reliance on the exceptional events rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a big problem,” said Leonard of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. “And you’re not only actively ignoring it, you’re actively trying to get out of doing something about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"First pushed through by the Republican senator and climate change denier Jim Inhofe, the exceptional events rule has become a 'regulatory escape hatch' for states that want to meet federal air quality standards.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1697239664,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":40,"wordCount":1898},"headData":{"title":"What Is the Exceptional Events Rule? The Loophole Letting US Regulators Wipe Air Pollution From the Record | KQED","description":"First pushed through by the Republican senator and climate denier Jim Inhofe, the exceptional events rule has become a ‘regulatory escape hatch’ for states that want to meet federal air-quality standards.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","socialDescription":"First pushed through by the Republican senator and climate denier Jim Inhofe, the exceptional events rule has become a ‘regulatory escape hatch’ for states that want to meet federal air-quality standards.","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"What Is the Exceptional Events Rule? The Loophole Letting US Regulators Wipe Air Pollution From the Record","datePublished":"2023-10-16T10:00:47.000Z","dateModified":"2023-10-13T23:27:44.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin, Emily Zentner and Andrew Witherspoon","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11964447/what-is-the-exceptional-events-rule-the-loophole-letting-us-regulators-wipe-air-pollution-from-the-record","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When smoke from the Camp Fire poured down over northern California in 2018, schools across the region closed to protect kids from breathing dangerous air. When wildfires blanketed the Willamette Valley with soot and ash in 2020, hundreds of Oregonians sought urgent care for shortness of breath, headaches and asthma. When Canadian wildfire smoke made its way to Michigan last year, ozone levels in Detroit spiked to levels that caused officials to warn residents sensitive to air pollution to take extra care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In each of those cases, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the federal agency that oversees air quality, allowed local air regulators to strike the pollution caused by these events from air-quality records, using a mostly overlooked legal tool called the “exceptional events rule,” which allows pollution caused by “uncontrollable” events to be forgiven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A new investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> found that local regulators are turning to the exceptional events rule for wildfires more and more often to reach air quality goals — goals that are harder to meet as the climate crisis gets worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The review of thousands of documents, which include regulatory filings, emails and scientific analyses, also found several examples of industry groups working hand in hand with local regulators to get these exemptions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The increasing use of the rule for wildfires, experts say, not only obscures health risks to people across the U.S., but undermines the goals of the landmark Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nick Leonard, who directs the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center in Detroit, Michigan, sees the problem in fairly simple terms: The growing threat of wildfire smoke is exacerbated by climate change. Climate change has been fueled by the oil and gas industry. Their lobbyists, in turn, have pushed states to use the exceptional events rule as much as possible, slowing progress to address air pollution at the local level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“EPA’s had a stake in this problem for a long time. States have had a stake in this problem for a long time. Private companies have had a stake in this problem for a long time,” Leonard said. “And now when that problem is coming home to roost, they’re saying, ‘Well, who could have seen this coming?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11964450\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1.png\" alt=\"Map showing smoke density \" width=\"1240\" height=\"1472\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1.png 1240w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1-800x950.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1-1020x1211.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1-160x190.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1240px) 100vw, 1240px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Republican senator’s crusade\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The driving force behind the exceptional events rule was Jim Inhofe, the former Republican senator from Oklahoma who, for decades, \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/22/us-senate-man-climate-change-global-warming-hoax\">called climate change a hoax\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the spring of 1998, air quality managers in his home state found themselves in a tough spot. A wildfire on Mexico’s drought-stricken Yucatán peninsula had sent acrid smoke north, and around that time Oklahoma City exceeded its pollution limits. If the soot and ozone stayed on the books, they’d have to tighten controls on known local polluters. Instead, they argued to the EPA that the pollution shouldn’t count because it came from a wildfire, and so was “natural” and “uncontrollable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA turned air quality managers down, to Inhofe’s frustration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964452\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964452\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281.jpg\" alt=\"Telephone pole tipped over, pulling down wires, amid smoky air\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/111318_AW_CampFire_36-scaled-e1697234471281-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fallen power line on Nunneley Road in Paradise, Butte County, on Nov. 13, 2018. \u003ccite>(Smoke lingers in the air in Paradise, California on November 13, 2018. Photograph: Anne Wernikoff/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He held several hearings and meetings, grilling the EPA. He thought local regulators should have more discretion to ignore pollution — including the kinds that are hard to control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until then, no formal rule in the Clean Air Act allowed that. The EPA did have a policy, infrequently used in the 1980s and 1990s, that allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control.” That wasn’t enough for the pro-business senator.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inhofe’s years-long crusade succeeded. Once added to the Clean Air Act, the “exceptional events” rule enabled regulators to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from records used to make regulatory decisions. Since 2007, local officials have been able to request that pollution data be excluded from clean air determinations when it comes from an array of events, from volcanoes to fireworks to “unusual traffic circumstances,” and the fastest-growing event of all: wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The purpose of the amendment was deregulatory, to be sure,” said John Walke, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-11964451\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1720\" height=\"906\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1.png 1720w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-800x421.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-1020x537.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-160x84.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/showcase-860@2x-1-1536x809.png 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1720px) 100vw, 1720px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A regulatory escape hatch\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The exceptional events rule functions as a regulatory escape hatch. When soot and ozone drift in from “natural” sources like wildfires, regulators can ask the EPA for an exception. If the federal agency grants it, that air pollution is erased from the regulatory record and disregarded in regulatory decisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local air officials often spend months, using publicly funded atmospheric modelling and meteorological data, to create hundreds of pages documenting why pollution exceedances shouldn’t count — sometimes with the help of industry-funded consultants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because justifying an exceptional event is complicated and expensive, guidance from the EPA directs regulators to apply the rule only when it has regulatory significance, including meeting federal air standards — or, in regulator speak, achieving “attainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attainment communicates to the public that the air meets conditions regulators have deemed healthy. It helps people decide where to live and work. The meeting of standards loosens both federal funding for transportation and pollution controls for factories.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>What we studied, and what we found\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>No other rule works like exceptional events to discount recorded pollution from consideration by regulators. We requested hard-to-find EPA data about exceptional events. We reviewed thousands of pages of written material, including correspondence, materials related to contracting, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">what are called “demonstrations” (DOC)\u003c/a> of these events — basically, descriptions of toxic events regulators don’t want to be responsible for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our \u003ca href=\"https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2023/oct/16/smoke-screened-methodology/\">analysis \u003c/a>shows that:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since 2016, local regulators have flagged almost 700 exceptional events to the EPA. The agency agreed to adjust \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">the data\u003c/a> on 139 of them.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">The adjustments were allowed in more than 70 counties across 20 states.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">More than 21 million Americans live in areas where an adjustment \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/final-agency-actions-215474/\">allowed local regulators to claim (DOC)\u003c/a> the area had met strict national health standards or that the air was cleaner than it actually was.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">On three-fourths of the days exceptional events were reported, local governments pointed at wildfires in justifying their requests.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">Local regulators are turning to the exceptional events rule for wildfires more and more often to reach air quality goals. In 2016, 19 wildfire events were submitted to the EPA. In 2020, 65 were.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">Businesses and industry representatives lobbied local air regulators before an event was even considered, as happened in Kentucky, and worked together with them to file exceptional event requests, as happened in Louisiana.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The use of the exceptional events rule means U.S. air-quality data doesn’t reflect how safe it is to breathe, said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health scientist at the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our regulatory picture is really not keeping up with the true toll, the true health burden posed by air pollution and wildfire smoke,” he said. “And we really need to be taking into consideration the truth on the ground in terms of what exposures look like and what that means for public health across the country.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rule in practice lets regional regulators meet air quality goals without having to put additional demands on polluters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964465\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11964465\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774.jpg\" alt=\"Trees engulfed in flames\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1438\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-800x599.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/IMG_3239-scaled-e1697232933774-1536x1150.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters battle the Mosquito Fire near Foresthill, Placer County, on Sept. 7, 2022. \u003ccite>(Andrew Nixon/CapRadio)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re just pretending like it’s just not happening,” said Sanjay Narayan, the managing attorney for the Sierra Club’s Environmental Law Program. “The pollution is not in the air from sort of a regulatory perspective, which is the way in which things become invisible. All of this is invisible unless you trawl through all of these reports.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to questions, a spokesperson for the EPA, Khanya Brann, said the agency “takes our decisions related to exceptional events seriously. We recognize that even when pollution (such as wildfire smoke) is not something that an air agency can control, people still are breathing the polluted air.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA said it requires mitigation plans where exceptional events recur. Those plans include efforts to educate and notify the public about the pollution risk, as well as to take “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A growing loophole\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Soot, ash and other particulate matter drive health risks that are significant to pregnant people, children, outdoor workers, residents of leaky buildings and anyone with heart or lung ailments. Ozone produced by wildfire pollution carries an invisible threat, irritating and inflaming lungs; even short-term exposure above certain levels raises the risk of premature death. The federal Office of Management and Budget estimates that in an increasingly extreme climate\u003cb>,\u003c/b> \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OMB_Climate_Risk_Exposure_2022.pdf\">wildfire smoke exposure could increase federal health care expenditures (PDF)\u003c/a> by $128 million to $226 million each year by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to focus on solutions for wildfire smoke, because about 30% to 50% of our wildfires are directly attributed to climate change and increasing temperatures around the globe,” said Kari Nadeau, an immunologist who directs the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. \u003cb>“\u003c/b>No one is immune to this. Everyone can be affected.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pedestrians\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Climate change has already created the conditions for more frequent and significant wildfires this year, from Maui to Quebec.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists and activists worry that the exceptional events rule can be exploited to avoid the costly efforts needed to address this growing crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the Clean Air Act was passed by a nearly unanimous Congress and signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970, it focused on pollution from soot-spewing smokestacks and freeways full of cars with tailpipes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The soot from Canadian fires that choked skies from Chicago to Washington earlier this year was a sickly brown telltale for some of the same key pollutants the Clean Air Act aimed to fight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA has proposed lowering the standard for fine particulates. Soon, ozone standards could be tightened, too, a consensus recommendation of the agency’s top scientific advisers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry have told the EPA the exceptional events rule will be a key part of meeting ozone standards. States themselves say any moves to tighten particulate or ozone limits will be met with a greater reliance on the exceptional events rule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a big problem,” said Leonard of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center. “And you’re not only actively ignoring it, you’re actively trying to get out of doing something about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11964447/what-is-the-exceptional-events-rule-the-loophole-letting-us-regulators-wipe-air-pollution-from-the-record","authors":["byline_news_11964447"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_2928","news_20962","news_255","news_21506","news_33329","news_28199"],"featImg":"news_11964454","label":"news"},"news_11964317":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11964317","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11964317","score":null,"sort":[1697450404000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"revealed-how-a-little-known-pollution-rule-keeps-the-air-dirty-for-millions-of-americans","title":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans","publishDate":1697450404,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> reveals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964354\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png\" alt=\"A graph\" width=\"800\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-1020x1032.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-160x162.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where the EPA — the U.S. department monitoring air quality — has agreed to exclude bad air days from analysis, “we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit advocacy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The truth is more complicated, and the air dirtier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The true conditions on the ground in terms of the air that people are breathing in, day after day, week after week, year after year, is increasingly an unhealthy situation,” Limaye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We pored over thousands of pages of regulatory documentation, correspondence and contracts, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2023/oct/16/smoke-screened-methodology/\">analyzed hard-to-find public data\u003c/a> to better understand how local regulators make use of the exceptional events rule, as global heating sparks extreme wildfires more often.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that, since 2016, when the EPA last revised the guidance on exceptional events:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Local regulators in 21 states \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">filed requests with the agency (DOC)\u003c/a> to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In total, local regulators made note of almost 700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">the data\u003c/a> on 139 of them.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio Rust Belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics say the growing use of the exceptional events rule for wildfires is of deep concern. “You need to level with the public about the number of days when the air quality was unhealthy,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator who directs the Environmental Integrity Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have saved more lives in this country because we cleaned up the air than almost any other environmental policy,” said Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “And that’s what’s being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The world has changed,” he said. “We are living in a different world when it comes to wildfire and all of its consequences, including air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to written questions, the EPA said it takes all air pollution seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964351\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a bridge with two pairs of people walking.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Highway 49 Bridge over the South Yuba River in Nevada County, California, is a popular area for hikers. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Wildland fire and smoke pose increasing challenges and human health impacts in communities all around the country,” Khanya Brann, an EPA spokesperson, wrote. “EPA works closely with other federal agencies, state and local health departments, tribal nations, and other partners to provide information, tools, and resources to support communities in preparing for, responding to, and reducing health impacts from wildland fire and smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA also pointed to “mitigation plans,” in which air districts that have experienced repeated exceptional events must create plans for educating and notifying the public about the pollution risk, as well as “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures” like limiting use of wood-burning stoves and wetting down unpaved roads before dust storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More ‘toxic soup’ and more paperwork\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., clean-air policy long allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control.” But in 2005, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has long denied the climate crisis, won a years-long battle to amend the Clean Air Act. The new rule gave local officials more opportunity to exclude pollution from regulatory consideration for an array of events, from fireworks displays and volcanic eruptions to wildfires and even unusual traffic events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964355\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"743\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-1020x948.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-160x149.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of communities in the Southwest where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis of local and EPA records found that in 2016, air agencies flagged 19 wildfire events as potential exceptional events. In 2018 and 2021, 52 and 50 wildfire events were flagged, respectively. In 2020, 65 were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The uptick in exceptional events is absolutely consistent with what we see in the air pollution data,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Smoke is accounting for a higher proportion of overall air pollution, and it’s going up quickly, Burke said — not just in the Western U.S., but nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964347\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg\" alt='A building with a flag pole and a wooden sign that reads \"Nevada County Consolidated Fire District\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nevada County Consolidated Fire District office in Nevada City on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan / The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>No state is blamed more for smoke pollution than California, followed by Oregon and Canadian provinces, according to our analysis. Western states are more likely to point fingers at each other, while states in the Midwest and Northeast place the blame on Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is a dirty and complicated polluter. Limaye, of the NRDC, called it a “toxic soup of air pollution.” It carries soot and ash, regulated as particulate pollution, as well as hydrocarbons and other gases that, cooked in sunlight, help form ground-level ozone. It’s a growing concern for public health, both near the source and thousands of miles away. Smoke, especially from a long-burning fire, can travel long distances and linger at dangerous levels for weeks at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964356\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1101\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1020x1403.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-160x220.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1116x1536.png 1116w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When wildfire caused air pollution, the rule was applied to more monitor readings over multiple days, not just to exclude particulate pollution but also smog or ozone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a lot of time,” said John Walke, a lawyer for the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One or two violations at a single air monitor can flip an area from meeting air standards to missing the mark, according to Walke. Three or four violations over several years can prompt increasingly strict local pollution controls. “So a lot is riding on one, or two, or three violations,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A smokier future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The recent experience of California’s Nevada county may offer a glimpse of a smokier future. So far, the exceptional events rule has removed 16 days from the record there in the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964350\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964350\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing a plaid shirt stands next to some equipment.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julie Hunter, the interim director of the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, poses for a photo by a monitor in her district. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ozone levels are rising in the background in this foothill community, according to Julie Hunter, the interim chief for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District. She said more trucks and warmer temperatures are to blame. More frequently now, she said, wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, stuck until conditions change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During one fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in the town of Grass Valley. “We couldn’t see past down the driveway,” said Dr. Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic in town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1020x573.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1536x864.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png 1793w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over hours, the clinic’s security guards got lightheaded and developed headaches. “We told them, you need to wear N95 masks, too,” Stevens said. “That kind of prolonged exposure to those things was very real.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After fires in 2018 and 2020, the EPA wiped more than two weeks of ozone pollution in the district from the record. That didn’t get Nevada county all the way to a clean bill of health, but local regulators avoided having to tighten rules on local emissions. Hunter, the local regulator, said her district is likely to seek more exceptional events there, including for fires in the last two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964366\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964366\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png\" alt=\"Two men dressed in firefighter uniforms move towards a fire outdoors with the man on the right holding a fire hose.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1020x681.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-160x107.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1536x1025.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-2048x1367.png 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1920x1281.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters from Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach battle the Bond Fire in Santiago Canyon on Dec. 3, 2020. \u003ccite>(Brian Feinzimer/LAist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If we take out wildfire smoke as one of the things that we look at, then we’re not going to be addressing problems that really affect our community here,” said Stevens, who directs the health clinic. The surge of asthma and other health problems from smoke can be overlooked when it happens in a rural community, she said. “I think it’s maybe a way that we don’t put enough attention into fixing something that can be fixed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the California Air Resources Board stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really are trying to pull out all the stops,” Michael Benjamin, the chief of CARB’s air-quality planning and science division, said. Practically, he added: “We and the air districts in California will continue to take advantage of the exceptional events provisions in the Clean Air Act to try to show attainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to showing attainment, the stakes are high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scrubbing smoke from regulatory accounting allows local governments and business to continue as usual, since the practice obscures the toll wildfires take on public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also ignores the ways that the climate crisis is altering how people decide where to live across the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We are all inheriting this’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2017, Maitreyi Siruguri and her husband woke in the night to a sky lit unnaturally orange. They left their Santa Rosa home with their young children in the early hours of the morning; the fire that eventually swirled through went on to kill 22 people and destroy more than 5,600 structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then 3 and 7 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, they left for the suburbs of Chicago. They could afford to buy a house; the family would be closer to friends and relatives — and further, she hoped, from wildfire and smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up in India in the 1980s and 1990s, and working as a climate educator, Siruguri knows very well that there is no escape hatch leading away from environmental problems. “We are all inheriting this, in every part of the world,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964349\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964349\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a woman wearing a reddish-orange sweater with a purple shirt with designs.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-160x240.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic, on Oct. 4, 2023 in Grass Valley. During a fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in Grass Valley. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wara, of Stanford’s Woods Institute, argues that such an inheritance requires investment. Rather than trying to protect the status quo, he said, governments could make a new cost-benefit analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, as air quality worsened across Illinois from Canadian fires, Siruguri worried anew in Naperville. On a late July day, when smoke pollution had returned, she brought her child to soccer camp, and asked the camp’s director whether the air was healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964348\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964348\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An image of a downtown area of a city.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Downtown Nevada City on Oct. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He didn’t have an answer. “He was like, well, we kind of wait till somebody tells us what to do or you make the decision for your child,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siruguri believes the government must work to stop climate change, including by switching energy sources away from fossil fuels. She believes that when officials talk to the public, they should be honest about how smoke is changing air over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard for the general public to know. The next time I see bad air quality, I will be looking for how that’s getting recorded,” Siruguri said. “It is concerning that these decisions are made behind the scenes, almost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe or unsafe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A major investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving more than 21 million Americans with air that's dirtier than they realize.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1697414090,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":56,"wordCount":2517},"headData":{"title":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans | KQED","description":"A major investigation shows local governments are increasingly exploiting a loophole in the Clean Air Act, leaving more than 21 million Americans with air that's dirtier than they realize.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Revealed: How a Little-Known Pollution Rule Keeps the Air Dirty for Millions of Americans","datePublished":"2023-10-16T10:00:04.000Z","dateModified":"2023-10-15T23:54:50.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Molly Peterson, Dillon Bergin, Emily Zentner and Andrew Witherspoon ","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11964317/revealed-how-a-little-known-pollution-rule-keeps-the-air-dirty-for-millions-of-americans","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A legal loophole has allowed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strike pollution from clean air tallies in more than 70 counties, enabling local regulators to claim the air was cleaner than it really was for more than 21 million Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regulators have exploited a little-known provision in the Clean Air Act called the “exceptional events rule” to forgive pollution caused by “natural” or “uncontrollable” events — including wildfires — investigation from The California Newsroom, MuckRock and \u003cem>The Guardian\u003c/em> reveals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964354\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png\" alt=\"A graph\" width=\"800\" height=\"809\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-800x809.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-1020x1032.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2-160x162.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-2.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to obscuring the true health risks of pollution and swerving away from tighter control on local polluters, the rule threatens the potency of the Clean Air Act, experts argue, at a time when the climate crisis is posing an unprecedented challenge to the health of millions of Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Where the EPA — the U.S. department monitoring air quality — has agreed to exclude bad air days from analysis, “we may have a sort of stable, relatively rosy picture when it comes to our regulatory world in terms of air-quality trends,” said Vijay Limaye, a climate and health epidemiologist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a nonprofit advocacy group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The truth is more complicated, and the air dirtier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The true conditions on the ground in terms of the air that people are breathing in, day after day, week after week, year after year, is increasingly an unhealthy situation,” Limaye said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the summer of 2023, more than 20 states so far, from Wyoming to Wisconsin to North Carolina, have flagged air-quality readings that were far higher than normal. Most of these days came in June, as skies in the Midwest and Eastern U.S. were blanketed with Canadian wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We pored over thousands of pages of regulatory documentation, correspondence and contracts, and \u003ca href=\"https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2023/oct/16/smoke-screened-methodology/\">analyzed hard-to-find public data\u003c/a> to better understand how local regulators make use of the exceptional events rule, as global heating sparks extreme wildfires more often.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We found that, since 2016, when the EPA last revised the guidance on exceptional events:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Local regulators in 21 states \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/projects/exceptional-event-demonstrations-215472/\">filed requests with the agency (DOC)\u003c/a> to forgive pollution and, in 20 of those states, had them approved.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In total, local regulators made note of almost 700 exceptional events. The EPA agreed to adjust \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/air-quality-exceptional-events\">the data\u003c/a> on 139 of them.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>The adjustments came in more than 70 counties across 20 states. The affected areas stretched from the forested Oregon coast to the Ohio Rust Belt, from the craggy Rhode Island coastline down to the bayous of Louisiana.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>In more than half of the states where exceptional events were forgiven, industry lobbyists and business interests pressed to make that happen, sometimes as the only public voice in the regulatory process. Also, to protect the status quo, some regulators spent millions of taxpayer dollars doing research for and making exceptional events requests, sometimes working hand in hand with industry stakeholders.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Meeting air-quality standards matters a lot to industry and politicians. Violations can add up to stricter, more costly and potentially unpopular pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Critics say the growing use of the exceptional events rule for wildfires is of deep concern. “You need to level with the public about the number of days when the air quality was unhealthy,” said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator who directs the Environmental Integrity Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have saved more lives in this country because we cleaned up the air than almost any other environmental policy,” said Michael Wara, the director of the climate and energy policy program at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment. “And that’s what’s being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The world has changed,” he said. “We are living in a different world when it comes to wildfire and all of its consequences, including air pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to written questions, the EPA said it takes all air pollution seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964351\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964351\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A photo of a bridge with two pairs of people walking.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_418-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Highway 49 Bridge over the South Yuba River in Nevada County, California, is a popular area for hikers. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Wildland fire and smoke pose increasing challenges and human health impacts in communities all around the country,” Khanya Brann, an EPA spokesperson, wrote. “EPA works closely with other federal agencies, state and local health departments, tribal nations, and other partners to provide information, tools, and resources to support communities in preparing for, responding to, and reducing health impacts from wildland fire and smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA also pointed to “mitigation plans,” in which air districts that have experienced repeated exceptional events must create plans for educating and notifying the public about the pollution risk, as well as “steps to identify, study, and implement mitigating measures” like limiting use of wood-burning stoves and wetting down unpaved roads before dust storms.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More ‘toxic soup’ and more paperwork\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In the U.S., clean-air policy long allowed local governments to write off some wildfire smoke on a case-by-case-basis as “unrealistic to control” or “impractical to fully control.” But in 2005, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has long denied the climate crisis, won a years-long battle to amend the Clean Air Act. The new rule gave local officials more opportunity to exclude pollution from regulatory consideration for an array of events, from fireworks displays and volcanic eruptions to wildfires and even unusual traffic events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964355\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"743\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-800x743.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-1020x948.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3-160x149.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-3.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At first, the rule was used most successfully in a handful of communities in the Southwest where high winds created a recurring problem of dust pollution. Over time, local regulators have turned to exceptional events for wildfires more and more often to reach air-quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our analysis of local and EPA records found that in 2016, air agencies flagged 19 wildfire events as potential exceptional events. In 2018 and 2021, 52 and 50 wildfire events were flagged, respectively. In 2020, 65 were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The uptick in exceptional events is absolutely consistent with what we see in the air pollution data,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Smoke is accounting for a higher proportion of overall air pollution, and it’s going up quickly, Burke said — not just in the Western U.S., but nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964347\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964347\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg\" alt='A building with a flag pole and a wooden sign that reads \"Nevada County Consolidated Fire District\"' width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_286-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Nevada County Consolidated Fire District office in Nevada City on Oct. 4, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan / The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>No state is blamed more for smoke pollution than California, followed by Oregon and Canadian provinces, according to our analysis. Western states are more likely to point fingers at each other, while states in the Midwest and Northeast place the blame on Canadian provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is a dirty and complicated polluter. Limaye, of the NRDC, called it a “toxic soup of air pollution.” It carries soot and ash, regulated as particulate pollution, as well as hydrocarbons and other gases that, cooked in sunlight, help form ground-level ozone. It’s a growing concern for public health, both near the source and thousands of miles away. Smoke, especially from a long-burning fire, can travel long distances and linger at dangerous levels for weeks at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We analyzed data recorded at air monitors nationwide. For every U.S. county, on a day where the EPA excluded any data, we counted that day. Our analysis found that the total number of wildfire-related bad air days erased from regulatory consideration in counties nationwide was nearly double that of bad air days related to high winds: 236 compared to 121.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964356\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1101\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-800x1101.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1020x1403.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-160x220.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x-1116x1536.png 1116w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/inArticle-620@2x.png 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When wildfire caused air pollution, the rule was applied to more monitor readings over multiple days, not just to exclude particulate pollution but also smog or ozone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is a lot of time,” said John Walke, a lawyer for the NRDC.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One or two violations at a single air monitor can flip an area from meeting air standards to missing the mark, according to Walke. Three or four violations over several years can prompt increasingly strict local pollution controls. “So a lot is riding on one, or two, or three violations,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A smokier future\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The recent experience of California’s Nevada county may offer a glimpse of a smokier future. So far, the exceptional events rule has removed 16 days from the record there in the last five years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964350\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964350\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"A white woman wearing a plaid shirt stands next to some equipment.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_224-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julie Hunter, the interim director of the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, poses for a photo by a monitor in her district. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ozone levels are rising in the background in this foothill community, according to Julie Hunter, the interim chief for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District. She said more trucks and warmer temperatures are to blame. More frequently now, she said, wildfire smoke is like a “pancake,” settling flat across the rural valley, stuck until conditions change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During one fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in the town of Grass Valley. “We couldn’t see past down the driveway,” said Dr. Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic in town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stevens remembered doctors and nurses moving among patients under the menacing amber skies, N95 masks snug on their faces to protect against COVID-19 — and wildfire smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11964365\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-800x450.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1020x573.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-160x90.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860-1536x864.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/test_showcase-860.png 1793w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over hours, the clinic’s security guards got lightheaded and developed headaches. “We told them, you need to wear N95 masks, too,” Stevens said. “That kind of prolonged exposure to those things was very real.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After fires in 2018 and 2020, the EPA wiped more than two weeks of ozone pollution in the district from the record. That didn’t get Nevada county all the way to a clean bill of health, but local regulators avoided having to tighten rules on local emissions. Hunter, the local regulator, said her district is likely to seek more exceptional events there, including for fires in the last two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964366\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM.png\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964366\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png\" alt=\"Two men dressed in firefighter uniforms move towards a fire outdoors with the man on the right holding a fire hose.\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-800x534.png 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1020x681.png 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-160x107.png 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1536x1025.png 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-2048x1367.png 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-12-at-5.41.29-PM-1920x1281.png 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Firefighters from Costa Mesa and Huntington Beach battle the Bond Fire in Santiago Canyon on Dec. 3, 2020. \u003ccite>(Brian Feinzimer/LAist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“If we take out wildfire smoke as one of the things that we look at, then we’re not going to be addressing problems that really affect our community here,” said Stevens, who directs the health clinic. The surge of asthma and other health problems from smoke can be overlooked when it happens in a rural community, she said. “I think it’s maybe a way that we don’t put enough attention into fixing something that can be fixed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the California Air Resources Board stress that state law works toward mitigating the effects of climate change, and state policies are supposed to minimize the risk of catastrophic fire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really are trying to pull out all the stops,” Michael Benjamin, the chief of CARB’s air-quality planning and science division, said. Practically, he added: “We and the air districts in California will continue to take advantage of the exceptional events provisions in the Clean Air Act to try to show attainment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to showing attainment, the stakes are high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scrubbing smoke from regulatory accounting allows local governments and business to continue as usual, since the practice obscures the toll wildfires take on public health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also ignores the ways that the climate crisis is altering how people decide where to live across the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We are all inheriting this’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2017, Maitreyi Siruguri and her husband woke in the night to a sky lit unnaturally orange. They left their Santa Rosa home with their young children in the early hours of the morning; the fire that eventually swirled through went on to kill 22 people and destroy more than 5,600 structures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Afterward, “I was starting to sense the emotional drain, from everyone having to go through this,” she said. She searched the internet with worry about how smoke could harm her children, then 3 and 7 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2021, they left for the suburbs of Chicago. They could afford to buy a house; the family would be closer to friends and relatives — and further, she hoped, from wildfire and smoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Growing up in India in the 1980s and 1990s, and working as a climate educator, Siruguri knows very well that there is no escape hatch leading away from environmental problems. “We are all inheriting this, in every part of the world,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964349\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964349\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg\" alt=\"A portrait of a woman wearing a reddish-orange sweater with a purple shirt with designs.\" width=\"800\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-800x1200.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1020x1530.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-160x240.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-1920x2880.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_63-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alinea Stevens, the medical director at the Chapa-De Indian Health clinic, on Oct. 4, 2023 in Grass Valley. During a fire in 2021, a thick plume of smoke covered the sun in Grass Valley. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wara, of Stanford’s Woods Institute, argues that such an inheritance requires investment. Rather than trying to protect the status quo, he said, governments could make a new cost-benefit analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It would not be unreasonable” to boost spending significantly to manage public and private lands to minimize smoke, “something like what we think is reasonable when it comes to coal-fired power plants, which is billions of dollars per year,” he said. “Because the harms that are being created by the smoke are large.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This summer, as air quality worsened across Illinois from Canadian fires, Siruguri worried anew in Naperville. On a late July day, when smoke pollution had returned, she brought her child to soccer camp, and asked the camp’s director whether the air was healthy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11964348\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11964348\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"An image of a downtown area of a city.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-800x533.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-160x107.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/10/Copy-of-Guardian_Exceptional_Events_Rule_583-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Downtown Nevada City on Oct. 5, 2023. \u003ccite>(Andri Tambunan/The Guardian)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>He didn’t have an answer. “He was like, well, we kind of wait till somebody tells us what to do or you make the decision for your child,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Siruguri believes the government must work to stop climate change, including by switching energy sources away from fossil fuels. She believes that when officials talk to the public, they should be honest about how smoke is changing air over time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s hard for the general public to know. The next time I see bad air quality, I will be looking for how that’s getting recorded,” Siruguri said. “It is concerning that these decisions are made behind the scenes, almost.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walke of the NRDC agreed: “The worst possible outcome is lying to the American people about whether the air they breathe is safe or unsafe.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret is a collaboration of The California Newsroom, MuckRock and the Guardian. Molly Peterson is a reporter for The California Newsroom. Dillon Bergin is a data reporter for MuckRock. Emily Zentner is a data reporter for The California Newsroom. Andrew Witherspoon is a data reporter for \u003c/em>The Guardian\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11964317/revealed-how-a-little-known-pollution-rule-keeps-the-air-dirty-for-millions-of-americans","authors":["byline_news_11964317"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2928","news_21506","news_33329","news_27626","news_31499"],"featImg":"news_11964345","label":"news"},"news_11958011":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11958011","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11958011","score":null,"sort":[1691787648000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"california-tribes-environmental-groups-urge-epa-probe-state-water-board","title":"California Tribes, Environmental Groups Urge EPA Probe of State Water Board","publishDate":1691787648,"format":"standard","headTitle":"California Tribes, Environmental Groups Urge EPA Probe of State Water Board | KQED","labelTerm":{},"content":"\u003cp>The Biden administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/environmental-justice\">environmental justice\u003c/a> office is investigating whether California’s water agency has discriminated against Native Americans and other people of color by failing to protect the water quality of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-bay\">San Francisco Bay\u003c/a> and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Gary Mulcahy, government liaison, Winnemem Wintu Tribe\"]‘It’s pretty bad when California Indians have to file a complaint with the Federal Government so that the State doesn’t violate our civil rights.’[/pullquote] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by tribes and environmental justice organizations that says the state Water Resources Control Board for over a decade “has failed to uphold its statutory duty” to review and update water quality standards in the Bay-Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s pretty bad when California Indians have to file a complaint with the Federal Government so that the State doesn’t violate our civil rights,” Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state water agency has allowed “waterways to descend into ecological crisis, with the resulting environmental burdens falling most heavily on Native tribes and other communities of color,” the complaint says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The groups also said the agency “has intentionally excluded local Native Tribes and Black, Asian and Latino residents from participation in the policymaking process associated with the Bay-Delta Plan,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.restorethedelta.org/wp-content/uploads/2023.08.08-REC_Acceptance_01RNO-23-R9.pdf\">according to an EPA letter to the state dated Tuesday (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackie Carpenter, a spokesperson for the water board, said the agency will cooperate fully and “believes U.S. EPA will ultimately conclude the board has acted appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The State Water Board deeply values its partnership with tribes to protect and preserve California’s water resources. The board’s highest water quality planning priority has been restoring native fish species in the Delta watershed that many tribes rely upon,” Carpenter said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The watershed is the heart of California’s water supply: Covering \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drought/delta/#:~:text=The%20Delta%20watershed%20comprises%20approximately,millions%20of%20acres%20of%20farmland.\">about 20% of California\u003c/a>, it includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems and is a vital water source for 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland.[aside postID=news_11957413 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/TribalBuyBack01-1020x680.jpg']The Bay-Delta is \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/docs/sed/sac_delta_framework_070618%20.pdf\">experiencing an “ecological crisis,” (PDF)\u003c/a> state water regulators have said, including a “prolonged and precipitous decline in numerous native species,” such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/endangered-species-conservation/sacramento-river-winter-run-chinook-salmon\">endangered winter-run Chinook salmon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Fishes/Delta-Smelt\">the tiny Delta smelt\u003c/a>. Intensifying water development, diversions and dwindling freshwater flows have exacerbated the crisis. And the relentless \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/centers/california-water-science-center/science/emergency-drought-barriers-impacts-cyanohabs-and\">push of salt water into the Delta and blossoming harmful algal blooms\u003c/a> have left \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-water-delta-tunnel/\">farmers and residents desperate for solutions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healthy waterways and fisheries are critical to the culture and diet of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Harmful algal blooms, low flows and water contamination also prevent people of color in South Stockton and other communities from using waterways in their neighborhoods for recreation or subsistence fishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s decision to investigate comes as water board scientists prepare a staff report on updating the Bay-Delta’s water quality plan. Carpenter said the report will evaluate certain tribal beneficial uses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the possible approaches considered in the updated plan will be \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/Newsroom/Page-Content/News-List/Agreement-with-Local-Water-Suppliers-to-Improve-the-Health-of-Rivers-and-Landscapes\">a $2.6 billion\u003c/a> deal that Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/NewsRoom/Voluntary-Agreement-Package-March-29-2022.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery\">struck last March with major water suppliers and agricultural irrigation districts (PDF)\u003c/a>, which voluntarily agreed to address flows and habitats in the Delta.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Dillon Delvo, executive director, Little Manila Rising\"]‘As long as the state upholds historic water rights, that we all know to be racist and unfair, we will continue to have first- and second-class California communities.’[/pullquote]Tribes and environmental organizations said the deal came from backroom negotiations between water suppliers and officials that excluded people of color, and that it “fails to protect the health of the estuary, its native fish and wildlife, and the jobs and communities that depend on its health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint mentions Newsom’s voluntary agreements 52 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>As long as the state upholds historic water rights, that we all know to be racist and unfair, we will continue to have first- and second-class California communities,” Dillon Delvo, executive director of Little Manila Rising, an organization based in Stockton, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA said in its letter that while an investigation “is not a decision on the merits,” the complaint meets the requirements for initiating its probe, including that “it alleges discriminatory acts by the Board which is a recipient of EPA financial assistance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s water board will have 30 days to respond, and the EPA will issue its findings within the next six months unless both sides agree to resolve the issue informally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A discrimination complaint filed by Native American tribes and environmental justice groups alleges California failed to protect water quality in the Bay-Delta.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1691781186,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":16,"wordCount":848},"headData":{"title":"California Tribes, Environmental Groups Urge EPA Probe of State Water Board | KQED","description":"A discrimination complaint filed by Native American tribes and environmental justice groups alleges California failed to protect water quality in the Bay-Delta.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California Tribes, Environmental Groups Urge EPA Probe of State Water Board","datePublished":"2023-08-11T21:00:48.000Z","dateModified":"2023-08-11T19:13:06.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"source":"CalMatters","sourceUrl":"https://calmatters.org/","nprByline":"\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/rachel-becker/\">Rachel Becker\u003c/a>","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11958011/california-tribes-environmental-groups-urge-epa-probe-state-water-board","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Biden administration’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/environmental-justice\">environmental justice\u003c/a> office is investigating whether California’s water agency has discriminated against Native Americans and other people of color by failing to protect the water quality of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-bay\">San Francisco Bay\u003c/a> and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘It’s pretty bad when California Indians have to file a complaint with the Federal Government so that the State doesn’t violate our civil rights.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Gary Mulcahy, government liaison, Winnemem Wintu Tribe","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s investigation was triggered by a complaint filed by tribes and environmental justice organizations that says the state Water Resources Control Board for over a decade “has failed to uphold its statutory duty” to review and update water quality standards in the Bay-Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s pretty bad when California Indians have to file a complaint with the Federal Government so that the State doesn’t violate our civil rights,” Gary Mulcahy, government liaison for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state water agency has allowed “waterways to descend into ecological crisis, with the resulting environmental burdens falling most heavily on Native tribes and other communities of color,” the complaint says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The groups also said the agency “has intentionally excluded local Native Tribes and Black, Asian and Latino residents from participation in the policymaking process associated with the Bay-Delta Plan,” \u003ca href=\"https://www.restorethedelta.org/wp-content/uploads/2023.08.08-REC_Acceptance_01RNO-23-R9.pdf\">according to an EPA letter to the state dated Tuesday (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jackie Carpenter, a spokesperson for the water board, said the agency will cooperate fully and “believes U.S. EPA will ultimately conclude the board has acted appropriately.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The State Water Board deeply values its partnership with tribes to protect and preserve California’s water resources. The board’s highest water quality planning priority has been restoring native fish species in the Delta watershed that many tribes rely upon,” Carpenter said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The watershed is the heart of California’s water supply: Covering \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drought/delta/#:~:text=The%20Delta%20watershed%20comprises%20approximately,millions%20of%20acres%20of%20farmland.\">about 20% of California\u003c/a>, it includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems and is a vital water source for 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11957413","hero":"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/TribalBuyBack01-1020x680.jpg","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Bay-Delta is \u003ca href=\"https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/docs/sed/sac_delta_framework_070618%20.pdf\">experiencing an “ecological crisis,” (PDF)\u003c/a> state water regulators have said, including a “prolonged and precipitous decline in numerous native species,” such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/endangered-species-conservation/sacramento-river-winter-run-chinook-salmon\">endangered winter-run Chinook salmon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Fishes/Delta-Smelt\">the tiny Delta smelt\u003c/a>. Intensifying water development, diversions and dwindling freshwater flows have exacerbated the crisis. And the relentless \u003ca href=\"https://www.usgs.gov/centers/california-water-science-center/science/emergency-drought-barriers-impacts-cyanohabs-and\">push of salt water into the Delta and blossoming harmful algal blooms\u003c/a> have left \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/06/california-water-delta-tunnel/\">farmers and residents desperate for solutions\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Healthy waterways and fisheries are critical to the culture and diet of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians and Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Harmful algal blooms, low flows and water contamination also prevent people of color in South Stockton and other communities from using waterways in their neighborhoods for recreation or subsistence fishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA’s decision to investigate comes as water board scientists prepare a staff report on updating the Bay-Delta’s water quality plan. Carpenter said the report will evaluate certain tribal beneficial uses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the possible approaches considered in the updated plan will be \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/Newsroom/Page-Content/News-List/Agreement-with-Local-Water-Suppliers-to-Improve-the-Health-of-Rivers-and-Landscapes\">a $2.6 billion\u003c/a> deal that Gov. Gavin Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://resources.ca.gov/-/media/CNRA-Website/Files/NewsRoom/Voluntary-Agreement-Package-March-29-2022.pdf?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery\">struck last March with major water suppliers and agricultural irrigation districts (PDF)\u003c/a>, which voluntarily agreed to address flows and habitats in the Delta.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘As long as the state upholds historic water rights, that we all know to be racist and unfair, we will continue to have first- and second-class California communities.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Dillon Delvo, executive director, Little Manila Rising","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Tribes and environmental organizations said the deal came from backroom negotiations between water suppliers and officials that excluded people of color, and that it “fails to protect the health of the estuary, its native fish and wildlife, and the jobs and communities that depend on its health.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint mentions Newsom’s voluntary agreements 52 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>As long as the state upholds historic water rights, that we all know to be racist and unfair, we will continue to have first- and second-class California communities,” Dillon Delvo, executive director of Little Manila Rising, an organization based in Stockton, said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA said in its letter that while an investigation “is not a decision on the merits,” the complaint meets the requirements for initiating its probe, including that “it alleges discriminatory acts by the Board which is a recipient of EPA financial assistance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s water board will have 30 days to respond, and the EPA will issue its findings within the next six months unless both sides agree to resolve the issue informally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11958011/california-tribes-environmental-groups-urge-epa-probe-state-water-board","authors":["byline_news_11958011"],"categories":["news_19906","news_8"],"tags":["news_20075","news_28272","news_18538","news_6179","news_31791","news_20447","news_29943","news_31960","news_31599","news_18863","news_21506","news_18142","news_1262","news_29002","news_2513","news_6653","news_1861"],"affiliates":["news_18481"],"featImg":"news_11958021","label":"source_news_11958011"},"news_11950795":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11950795","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11950795","score":null,"sort":[1685064193000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"supreme-court-sharply-limits-federal-governments-ability-to-police-pollution-into-certain-wetlands","title":"Supreme Court Sharply Limits Federal Government's Ability to Police Pollution Into Certain Wetlands","publishDate":1685064193,"format":"standard","headTitle":"Supreme Court Sharply Limits Federal Government’s Ability to Police Pollution Into Certain Wetlands | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court\">Supreme Court\u003c/a> on Thursday sharply \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf\">limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution (PDF)\u003c/a> into certain wetlands, the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority narrowed the reach of \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-arizona-state-government-donald-trump-8d46b14c20cb0effcb52ace48220dcce\">environmental regulations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcome could threaten efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River and protect the Chesapeake Bay, among many projects, wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh, breaking with the other five conservatives. Environmental advocates said the decision would strip protections from tens of millions of acres of wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-environment-lakes-pollution-water-pollution-31034c1d9df1a63cc0841b29ac7a3fe1\">Idaho couple\u003c/a> who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle. Chantell and Michael Sackett objected when federal officials identified a soggy portion of the property as a wetlands that required them to get a permit before filling it with rocks and soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By a 5–4 vote, the court said in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that wetlands can only be regulated under the \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act\">Clean Water Act\u003c/a> if they have a “continuous surface connection” to larger, regulated bodies of water. There is no such connection on the Sacketts’ property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California water officials say they are disappointed with the decision, but that the ruling doesn’t block California’s stronger environmental rules.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"President Joe Biden\"]‘The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in Sackett v. EPA will take our country backwards.’[/pullquote]The Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act only applies to wetlands with aboveground flow to main-stem rivers and other big bodies of water. California passed stronger environmental rules in 2019 protecting marshes that sit behind levees, dikes and dunes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the state is confident in its rules, Eric Buescher with Baykeeper says state law doesn’t require industry to report wetland pollution. “That self-identification is vital to communities knowing who is polluting or where pollution is occurring,” said Buescher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Water Act also allowed for citizens to bring lawsuits, whereas state laws do not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Joe Biden said the court’s decision defies science and undermines a law that has been used for a half-century to make American waters cleaner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in Sackett v. EPA will take our country backwards. It puts our Nation’s wetlands — and the rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds connected to them — at risk of pollution and destruction, jeopardizing the sources of clean water that millions of American families, farmers, and businesses rely on,” Biden said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court jettisoned the 17-year-old opinion by their former colleague, Anthony Kennedy, allowing regulation of what can be discharged into wetlands that could affect the health of the larger waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kennedy’s opinion covering wetlands that have a “significant nexus” to larger bodies of water had been the standard for evaluating whether permits were required for discharges under the 1972 landmark environmental law. Opponents had objected that the standard was vague and unworkable.[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"science_1981358,news_11946410,news_11944710\"]Reacting to the decision, Manish Bapna, chief executive of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called on Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to restore wetlands protections and on states to strengthen their own laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands. The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price,” Bapna said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcome almost certainly will affect ongoing court battles over \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-arizona-state-government-donald-trump-8d46b14c20cb0effcb52ace48220dcce\">new water regulations, including for wetlands,\u003c/a> that the Biden administration put in place in December. Two federal judges have \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/clean-water-act-epa-wotus-89ec06b09016564b0d721a6de9a9efb0\">temporarily blocked those rules\u003c/a> from being enforced in 26 states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/epa-biden-water-sackett-wotus-congress-senate-ec5a4b66376fdc9252f77575e29043ce\">Congress voted in March\u003c/a> to overturn the administration’s new water rule, and, even though President Joe Biden vetoed the measure, the prospect of legislative action to restore wetlands protections anytime soon is remote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Michael S. Regan, credited the Clean Water Act with leading to “transformational progress” in cleaning up the nation’s waterways. “I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court decision that erodes longstanding clean water protections,” Regan said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damien Schiff, who represented the Sacketts at the Supreme Court, said the decision appropriately narrowed the reach of the law. “Courts now have a clear measuring stick for fairness and consistency by federal regulators. Today’s ruling is a profound win for property rights and the constitutional separation of powers,” Schiff said in a statement issued by the property rights-focused Pacific Legal Foundation.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Manish Bapna, chief executive, Natural Resources Defense Council\"]‘The Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands.’[/pullquote]In Thursday’s ruling, all nine justices agreed that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property are not covered by the act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But only five justices joined in the opinion that imposed a new test for evaluating when wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Alito would have adopted the narrower standard in 2006, in the last big wetlands case at the Supreme Court. They were joined Thursday by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices charged that their colleagues had rewritten that law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kavanaugh wrote that the court’s “new and overly narrow test may leave long-regulated and long-accepted-to-be regulable wetlands suddenly beyond the scope of the agencies’ regulatory authority.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority’s rewriting of the act was “an effort to cabin the anti-pollution actions Congress thought appropriate.” Kagan referenced last year’s decision limiting the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In both cases, she noted, the court had appointed “itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy.” Kagan was joined in what she wrote by her liberal colleagues Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sacketts paid $23,000 for a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in 2005 and started building a three-bedroom home two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They had filled part of the property, described in an appellate ruling as a “soggy residential lot,” with rocks and soil in preparation for construction, when officials with the EPA showed up and ordered a halt in the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also won an earlier round in their legal fight at the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the EPA’s determination in 2021, finding that part of the property, 300 feet from the lake and 30 feet from an unnamed waterway that flows into the lake, was wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sacketts’ own consultant had similarly advised them years ago that their property contained wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting by KQED’s Kevin Stark.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"A conservative majority narrowed the reach of environmental regulations for the second time in two years as the Supreme Court sharply limits the federal government's authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1685071901,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":29,"wordCount":1237},"headData":{"title":"Supreme Court Sharply Limits Federal Government's Ability to Police Pollution Into Certain Wetlands | KQED","description":"A conservative majority narrowed the reach of environmental regulations for the second time in two years as the Supreme Court sharply limits the federal government's authority to police water pollution into certain wetlands.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Supreme Court Sharply Limits Federal Government's Ability to Police Pollution Into Certain Wetlands","datePublished":"2023-05-26T01:23:13.000Z","dateModified":"2023-05-26T03:31:41.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko\u003cbr>The Associated Press","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11950795/supreme-court-sharply-limits-federal-governments-ability-to-police-pollution-into-certain-wetlands","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court\">Supreme Court\u003c/a> on Thursday sharply \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf\">limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution (PDF)\u003c/a> into certain wetlands, the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority narrowed the reach of \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-arizona-state-government-donald-trump-8d46b14c20cb0effcb52ace48220dcce\">environmental regulations\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcome could threaten efforts to control flooding on the Mississippi River and protect the Chesapeake Bay, among many projects, wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh, breaking with the other five conservatives. Environmental advocates said the decision would strip protections from tens of millions of acres of wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-environment-lakes-pollution-water-pollution-31034c1d9df1a63cc0841b29ac7a3fe1\">Idaho couple\u003c/a> who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle. Chantell and Michael Sackett objected when federal officials identified a soggy portion of the property as a wetlands that required them to get a permit before filling it with rocks and soil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By a 5–4 vote, the court said in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that wetlands can only be regulated under the \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/laws-regulations/summary-clean-water-act\">Clean Water Act\u003c/a> if they have a “continuous surface connection” to larger, regulated bodies of water. There is no such connection on the Sacketts’ property.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California water officials say they are disappointed with the decision, but that the ruling doesn’t block California’s stronger environmental rules.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in Sackett v. EPA will take our country backwards.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"President Joe Biden","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Water Act only applies to wetlands with aboveground flow to main-stem rivers and other big bodies of water. California passed stronger environmental rules in 2019 protecting marshes that sit behind levees, dikes and dunes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the state is confident in its rules, Eric Buescher with Baykeeper says state law doesn’t require industry to report wetland pollution. “That self-identification is vital to communities knowing who is polluting or where pollution is occurring,” said Buescher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Clean Water Act also allowed for citizens to bring lawsuits, whereas state laws do not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Joe Biden said the court’s decision defies science and undermines a law that has been used for a half-century to make American waters cleaner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in Sackett v. EPA will take our country backwards. It puts our Nation’s wetlands — and the rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds connected to them — at risk of pollution and destruction, jeopardizing the sources of clean water that millions of American families, farmers, and businesses rely on,” Biden said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The court jettisoned the 17-year-old opinion by their former colleague, Anthony Kennedy, allowing regulation of what can be discharged into wetlands that could affect the health of the larger waterways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kennedy’s opinion covering wetlands that have a “significant nexus” to larger bodies of water had been the standard for evaluating whether permits were required for discharges under the 1972 landmark environmental law. Opponents had objected that the standard was vague and unworkable.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"Related Stories ","postid":"science_1981358,news_11946410,news_11944710"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Reacting to the decision, Manish Bapna, chief executive of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called on Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to restore wetlands protections and on states to strengthen their own laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands. The majority chose to protect polluters at the expense of healthy wetlands and waterways. This decision will cause incalculable harm. Communities across the country will pay the price,” Bapna said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The outcome almost certainly will affect ongoing court battles over \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-arizona-state-government-donald-trump-8d46b14c20cb0effcb52ace48220dcce\">new water regulations, including for wetlands,\u003c/a> that the Biden administration put in place in December. Two federal judges have \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/clean-water-act-epa-wotus-89ec06b09016564b0d721a6de9a9efb0\">temporarily blocked those rules\u003c/a> from being enforced in 26 states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/epa-biden-water-sackett-wotus-congress-senate-ec5a4b66376fdc9252f77575e29043ce\">Congress voted in March\u003c/a> to overturn the administration’s new water rule, and, even though President Joe Biden vetoed the measure, the prospect of legislative action to restore wetlands protections anytime soon is remote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Michael S. Regan, credited the Clean Water Act with leading to “transformational progress” in cleaning up the nation’s waterways. “I am disappointed by today’s Supreme Court decision that erodes longstanding clean water protections,” Regan said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Damien Schiff, who represented the Sacketts at the Supreme Court, said the decision appropriately narrowed the reach of the law. “Courts now have a clear measuring stick for fairness and consistency by federal regulators. Today’s ruling is a profound win for property rights and the constitutional separation of powers,” Schiff said in a statement issued by the property rights-focused Pacific Legal Foundation.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘The Supreme Court ripped the heart out of the law we depend on to protect American waters and wetlands.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"align":"right","size":"medium","citation":"Manish Bapna, chief executive, Natural Resources Defense Council","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In Thursday’s ruling, all nine justices agreed that the wetlands on the Sacketts’ property are not covered by the act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But only five justices joined in the opinion that imposed a new test for evaluating when wetlands are covered by the Clean Water Act. Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Clarence Thomas and Alito would have adopted the narrower standard in 2006, in the last big wetlands case at the Supreme Court. They were joined Thursday by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kavanaugh and the court’s three liberal justices charged that their colleagues had rewritten that law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kavanaugh wrote that the court’s “new and overly narrow test may leave long-regulated and long-accepted-to-be regulable wetlands suddenly beyond the scope of the agencies’ regulatory authority.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the majority’s rewriting of the act was “an effort to cabin the anti-pollution actions Congress thought appropriate.” Kagan referenced last year’s decision limiting the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In both cases, she noted, the court had appointed “itself as the national decision-maker on environmental policy.” Kagan was joined in what she wrote by her liberal colleagues Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sacketts paid $23,000 for a 0.63-acre lot near Priest Lake in 2005 and started building a three-bedroom home two years later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They had filled part of the property, described in an appellate ruling as a “soggy residential lot,” with rocks and soil in preparation for construction, when officials with the EPA showed up and ordered a halt in the work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also won an earlier round in their legal fight at the Supreme Court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the EPA’s determination in 2021, finding that part of the property, 300 feet from the lake and 30 feet from an unnamed waterway that flows into the lake, was wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Sacketts’ own consultant had similarly advised them years ago that their property contained wetlands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting by KQED’s Kevin Stark.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11950795/supreme-court-sharply-limits-federal-governments-ability-to-police-pollution-into-certain-wetlands","authors":["byline_news_11950795"],"categories":["news_19906","news_6188","news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_24085","news_21506","news_1116","news_1172"],"featImg":"news_11950800","label":"news"},"news_11950351":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11950351","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11950351","score":null,"sort":[1684846846000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"as-wildfire-smoke-worsens-public-health-government-watchdog-calls-epa-response-ad-hoc","title":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’","publishDate":1684846846,"format":"standard","headTitle":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’ | KQED","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>A new father drove home from the hospital in downtown Modesto, scared — not by having a newborn baby, but by smoke-filled, “apocalyptic-looking skies.” Tom Helme couldn’t see past the next stoplight on the flat, straight road ahead. On that fall day in 2017, it was dark, he said, “like if a nuclear bomb went off, or something blocked the sun.” The San Joaquin Valley was already years into what regulators now say is a downward slide in air quality, choked by smoke from frequent wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to wildfire smoke is “ad hoc,” poorly resourced and muddled by a lack of coordination with other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division, Environmental Protection Agency\"]‘If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage.’[/pullquote]“You could ask anybody working on wildfire smoke and the answer is no, we’re not doing enough,” said Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division in EPA Region 9, which includes California. “Not yet. Not yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last three decades, \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">the number of acres burned by wildfire\u003c/a> has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. The new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tool for erasing some of the worst air-pollution days is called the “exceptional events” rule — a legal pathway that allows local regulators to make a case that air pollution from “natural” wildfires shouldn’t count against their federal air quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local regulators who seek to designate wildfires as exceptional events say doing so sets off a complex, burdensome process that is nonetheless essential to avoid slipping further away from meeting air quality standards — even if removing wildfire smoke from the record doesn’t actually clean up the air. According to the GAO, federal \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">regulators have granted such requests more often\u003c/a> over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Modesto, Helme first heard about exceptional events more than a year before his son’s birth, as a member of an environmental justice advisory group that meets with regulators. Officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District had explained to the group that federal law permitted communities to avoid tighter regulation when pollution is “outside the control of the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme says that at that meeting, he wondered out loud whether smoke from fires was going to become the norm. “Do you picture a time when it’s not going to be considered exceptional because it happens every single year?” he asked. “And what are our options with that?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://felt.com/embed/map/Wildfires-by-decade-1980-2021-QBFznerjRpK6BWnGzY9BRYC?lat=40.428019&lon=-101.796478&zoom=4.24\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Erasing dangerous smoke from the data\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"science_1982166,science_1982448,science_1982494\" label=\"Related Posts\"]Wildfire smoke is one of the fastest-growing sources of air pollution in the United States. Particulate pollution from fires drives health risks that are significant to pregnant people, children, outdoor workers, residents of leaky buildings and anyone with heart or lung ailments. Ozone produced by wildfires can cause irritation and inflammation of the lungs; even short-term exposure above certain levels raises the risk of premature death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, the 1970 Clean Air Act gives regulators little ability to take actions that could limit wildfire smoke. That’s because the landmark law focused on soot spewing from smokestacks and tailpipes. Policymakers viewed human-made pollution as the primary threat to public health, said University of Colorado at Boulder geographer Katie Clifford. “Ultimately the thinking about pollution was not about natural risks,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the EPA, which enforces the Clean Air Act, has treated some wildfires, dust storms and volcanic eruptions as naturally occurring outliers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage,” said the EPA’s Meredith Bauer. “It’s everything that’s outside of that that we would call an exceptional event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exceptional events rule, added to the Clean Air Act in 2005, has enabled regulators to ignore pollution data from some events when deciding whether a particular region must do more to improve its air quality. The closer that regions come to meeting federal air quality standards, the fewer restrictions local businesses and other polluters face. Forgiving wildfire pollution helps them meet those standards — and it has been happening more frequently over the last decade, according to the new GAO analysis, which named California, Colorado, Rhode Island and Texas as places that have sought to have wildfire pollution data excused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/534YN/6/\" width=\"1000\" height=\"350\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Wara, a Stanford Law School professor who directs the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says the GAO’s findings are concerning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of the Clean Air Act is to protect people,” he said. “If a part of the law that was seldom used becomes frequently used, then the entire purposes of the act are being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes it clear that the exceptional events rule is one of the few tools the EPA has to respond to the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s very little legal or regulatory language defining EPA’s role in smoke management other than our exceptional events program,” said Anna Mebust, an atmospheric scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency who works on exceptional events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is “not something that the law was written to handle,” added Wara.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of dollars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The GAO’s investigation also found that proving an exceptional event is burdensome. The EPA told the watchdog that “providing guidance for and reviewing the analyses demand a significant resource investment” for its regional offices. Local regulators described the process as overly cumbersome and convoluted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is literally hundreds of hours of work” to prove that smoke pollution is an exceptional event, said Mark Loutzenhiser, who manages monitoring, programs and rules for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exceptional event demonstrations can run to hundreds of pages, just to write off smoke pollution for a day or two. Successful arguments help local communities avoid having to enforce stricter pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to show where the wildfire is. Was the wind actually blowing it there? Do you have satellite proof?” Loutzenhiser said. The EPA “look[s] at all of the pollutants. They look at all the weather conditions and they check to see, what do we think the pollution should have been, versus what did we actually measure? And you have to do this for every day of these exceptional events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Hunter, interim air pollution control officer for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, says preparing for a future exceptional event designation also means extra work tracking public health advisories and media reports about fire severity — even while it’s still burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that effort during and after wildfires is costly. The GAO says some local and state regulators hire consultants to help, including government scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In public documents, states estimate it can cost from $50,000 to $150,000 to prepare a filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1982166/the-epa-wants-cleaner-air-but-fire-experts-worry-new-rule-risks-making-it-worse\">the EPA considers tightening the national standard for fine particulates\u003c/a>, and as conditions for wildfires are worsening with climate change, regulators say they may see more requests to excuse that pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do need some help here. If the EPA will be constantly asking us for these large, resource-intensive packages … can we not streamline that, with EPA assisting us, saying, yes, we know that there was this giant wildfire?” Hunter said. “That’s our plea to EPA: Please help us streamline this process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjL0r/2/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Health risks grow, resources don’t\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even as smoke pollutes our air, the GAO reports that the EPA “does not have a coordinated agency-wide program or dedicated staff and resources for the agency’s work related to helping communities prepare for and respond to wildfire smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, work on wildfire smoke by the EPA is “done in addition to employees’ regular job duties.” Working on wildfire pollution is “like our Cinderella project — you know, after you’ve cleaned everything, you can go to the ball,” said EPA’s Bauer. “We work on this out of a passion for helping people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult to tap resources when we don’t have a mandate,” said the EPA’s Mebust. “I think our federal partners, their roles are more clearly defined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes a number of recommendations for the EPA to begin to better address pollution caused by wildfires. They include coordinating with other agencies to communicate risk and looking for ways to help reduce the likelihood of future smoke events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its response, EPA officials told the GAO that the programs that would accomplish these goals are underfunded and that it is “limited by its resources in its ability to respond to this growing threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, exceptional events for wildfires are becoming less and less exceptional. “The data demonstrates that,” said Wara. “And we should be concerned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Office of Management and Budget estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OMB_Climate_Risk_Exposure_2022.pdf\">wildfire smoke exposure could increase federal health care expenditures by $128 million (PDF)\u003c/a> to $226 million each year by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the San Joaquin Valley, Tom Helme’s son, now 5, struggles with asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme knows there are always going to be wildfires in California. But he’s not satisfied with the response of officials to those fires. “I don’t think they’re completely outside our control,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca id=\"howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">\u003c/a>How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://airtable.com/embed/shrtUxclfxepSjs9C?backgroundColor=purple\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The California Newsroom is a collaboration of California public radio stations. MuckRock is a nonprofit, collaborative platform and newsroom that brings together journalists, researchers and the public to request, analyze and share primary source data and documents in the public interest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"Over the last three decades, the number of acres burned by wildfire has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. A new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1684880404,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":true,"iframeSrcs":["https://felt.com/embed/map/Wildfires-by-decade-1980-2021-QBFznerjRpK6BWnGzY9BRYC","https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/534YN/6/","https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjL0r/2/","https://airtable.com/embed/shrtUxclfxepSjs9C"],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":44,"wordCount":1783},"headData":{"title":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’ | KQED","description":"Over the last three decades, the number of acres burned by wildfire has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. A new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"As Wildfire Smoke Worsens Public Health, Government Watchdog Calls EPA Response ‘Ad Hoc’","datePublished":"2023-05-23T13:00:46.000Z","dateModified":"2023-05-23T22:20:04.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"nprByline":"Molly Peterson (The California Newsroom) and Dillon Bergin (MuckRock)","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11950351/as-wildfire-smoke-worsens-public-health-government-watchdog-calls-epa-response-ad-hoc","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A new father drove home from the hospital in downtown Modesto, scared — not by having a newborn baby, but by smoke-filled, “apocalyptic-looking skies.” Tom Helme couldn’t see past the next stoplight on the flat, straight road ahead. On that fall day in 2017, it was dark, he said, “like if a nuclear bomb went off, or something blocked the sun.” The San Joaquin Valley was already years into what regulators now say is a downward slide in air quality, choked by smoke from frequent wildfires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recent report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s response to wildfire smoke is “ad hoc,” poorly resourced and muddled by a lack of coordination with other agencies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jump straight to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"‘If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage.’","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"right","citation":"Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division, Environmental Protection Agency","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“You could ask anybody working on wildfire smoke and the answer is no, we’re not doing enough,” said Meredith Bauer, assistant director for the air and radiation division in EPA Region 9, which includes California. “Not yet. Not yet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last three decades, \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">the number of acres burned by wildfire\u003c/a> has grown, spewing smoke across California and the country. The new GAO report highlights how a loophole in the Clean Air Act permits the EPA to erase pollution — not from the sky, but from the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tool for erasing some of the worst air-pollution days is called the “exceptional events” rule — a legal pathway that allows local regulators to make a case that air pollution from “natural” wildfires shouldn’t count against their federal air quality goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local regulators who seek to designate wildfires as exceptional events say doing so sets off a complex, burdensome process that is nonetheless essential to avoid slipping further away from meeting air quality standards — even if removing wildfire smoke from the record doesn’t actually clean up the air. According to the GAO, federal \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/MuckRock/gao-wildfire-exceptions\">regulators have granted such requests more often\u003c/a> over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Modesto, Helme first heard about exceptional events more than a year before his son’s birth, as a member of an environmental justice advisory group that meets with regulators. Officials at the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District had explained to the group that federal law permitted communities to avoid tighter regulation when pollution is “outside the control of the region.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme says that at that meeting, he wondered out loud whether smoke from fires was going to become the norm. “Do you picture a time when it’s not going to be considered exceptional because it happens every single year?” he asked. “And what are our options with that?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://felt.com/embed/map/Wildfires-by-decade-1980-2021-QBFznerjRpK6BWnGzY9BRYC?lat=40.428019&lon=-101.796478&zoom=4.24\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Erasing dangerous smoke from the data\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"science_1982166,science_1982448,science_1982494","label":"Related Posts "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is one of the fastest-growing sources of air pollution in the United States. Particulate pollution from fires drives health risks that are significant to pregnant people, children, outdoor workers, residents of leaky buildings and anyone with heart or lung ailments. Ozone produced by wildfires can cause irritation and inflammation of the lungs; even short-term exposure above certain levels raises the risk of premature death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, the 1970 Clean Air Act gives regulators little ability to take actions that could limit wildfire smoke. That’s because the landmark law focused on soot spewing from smokestacks and tailpipes. Policymakers viewed human-made pollution as the primary threat to public health, said University of Colorado at Boulder geographer Katie Clifford. “Ultimately the thinking about pollution was not about natural risks,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, the EPA, which enforces the Clean Air Act, has treated some wildfires, dust storms and volcanic eruptions as naturally occurring outliers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If pollution is created by people and it’s controllable, that’s what we want to manage,” said the EPA’s Meredith Bauer. “It’s everything that’s outside of that that we would call an exceptional event.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exceptional events rule, added to the Clean Air Act in 2005, has enabled regulators to ignore pollution data from some events when deciding whether a particular region must do more to improve its air quality. The closer that regions come to meeting federal air quality standards, the fewer restrictions local businesses and other polluters face. Forgiving wildfire pollution helps them meet those standards — and it has been happening more frequently over the last decade, according to the new GAO analysis, which named California, Colorado, Rhode Island and Texas as places that have sought to have wildfire pollution data excused.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/534YN/6/\" width=\"1000\" height=\"350\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Wara, a Stanford Law School professor who directs the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says the GAO’s findings are concerning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The whole point of the Clean Air Act is to protect people,” he said. “If a part of the law that was seldom used becomes frequently used, then the entire purposes of the act are being undermined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes it clear that the exceptional events rule is one of the few tools the EPA has to respond to the problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s very little legal or regulatory language defining EPA’s role in smoke management other than our exceptional events program,” said Anna Mebust, an atmospheric scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency who works on exceptional events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wildfire smoke is “not something that the law was written to handle,” added Wara.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of dollars\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The GAO’s investigation also found that proving an exceptional event is burdensome. The EPA told the watchdog that “providing guidance for and reviewing the analyses demand a significant resource investment” for its regional offices. Local regulators described the process as overly cumbersome and convoluted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is literally hundreds of hours of work” to prove that smoke pollution is an exceptional event, said Mark Loutzenhiser, who manages monitoring, programs and rules for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Exceptional event demonstrations can run to hundreds of pages, just to write off smoke pollution for a day or two. Successful arguments help local communities avoid having to enforce stricter pollution controls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have to show where the wildfire is. Was the wind actually blowing it there? Do you have satellite proof?” Loutzenhiser said. The EPA “look[s] at all of the pollutants. They look at all the weather conditions and they check to see, what do we think the pollution should have been, versus what did we actually measure? And you have to do this for every day of these exceptional events.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie Hunter, interim air pollution control officer for the Northern Sierra Air Quality Management District, says preparing for a future exceptional event designation also means extra work tracking public health advisories and media reports about fire severity — even while it’s still burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that effort during and after wildfires is costly. The GAO says some local and state regulators hire consultants to help, including government scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In public documents, states estimate it can cost from $50,000 to $150,000 to prepare a filing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1982166/the-epa-wants-cleaner-air-but-fire-experts-worry-new-rule-risks-making-it-worse\">the EPA considers tightening the national standard for fine particulates\u003c/a>, and as conditions for wildfires are worsening with climate change, regulators say they may see more requests to excuse that pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We do need some help here. If the EPA will be constantly asking us for these large, resource-intensive packages … can we not streamline that, with EPA assisting us, saying, yes, we know that there was this giant wildfire?” Hunter said. “That’s our plea to EPA: Please help us streamline this process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjL0r/2/\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Health risks grow, resources don’t\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Even as smoke pollutes our air, the GAO reports that the EPA “does not have a coordinated agency-wide program or dedicated staff and resources for the agency’s work related to helping communities prepare for and respond to wildfire smoke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the report, work on wildfire smoke by the EPA is “done in addition to employees’ regular job duties.” Working on wildfire pollution is “like our Cinderella project — you know, after you’ve cleaned everything, you can go to the ball,” said EPA’s Bauer. “We work on this out of a passion for helping people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very difficult to tap resources when we don’t have a mandate,” said the EPA’s Mebust. “I think our federal partners, their roles are more clearly defined.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The GAO report makes a number of recommendations for the EPA to begin to better address pollution caused by wildfires. They include coordinating with other agencies to communicate risk and looking for ways to help reduce the likelihood of future smoke events.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In its response, EPA officials told the GAO that the programs that would accomplish these goals are underfunded and that it is “limited by its resources in its ability to respond to this growing threat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, exceptional events for wildfires are becoming less and less exceptional. “The data demonstrates that,” said Wara. “And we should be concerned.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal Office of Management and Budget estimates \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OMB_Climate_Risk_Exposure_2022.pdf\">wildfire smoke exposure could increase federal health care expenditures by $128 million (PDF)\u003c/a> to $226 million each year by the end of the century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the San Joaquin Valley, Tom Helme’s son, now 5, struggles with asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Helme knows there are always going to be wildfires in California. But he’s not satisfied with the response of officials to those fires. “I don’t think they’re completely outside our control,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003ca id=\"howwildfiresmokeimpactsyou\">\u003c/a>How has wildfire smoke impacted your life? Let us know\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://airtable.com/embed/shrtUxclfxepSjs9C?backgroundColor=purple\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The California Newsroom is a collaboration of California public radio stations. MuckRock is a nonprofit, collaborative platform and newsroom that brings together journalists, researchers and the public to request, analyze and share primary source data and documents in the public interest.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11950351/as-wildfire-smoke-worsens-public-health-government-watchdog-calls-epa-response-ad-hoc","authors":["byline_news_11950351"],"categories":["news_8","news_356"],"tags":["news_2036","news_2928","news_21506","news_29523","news_29851"],"featImg":"news_11950397","label":"news"},"news_11945278":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11945278","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11945278","score":null,"sort":[1680293540000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"epa-approves-californias-plan-to-phase-out-diesel-trucks","title":"EPA Approves California's Plan to Phase Out Diesel Trucks","publishDate":1680293540,"format":"standard","headTitle":"KQED News","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>The Biden administration cleared the way Friday for California’s plan to phase out a wide range of diesel-powered trucks, part of the state’s efforts to drastically cut planet-warming emissions and improve air quality in heavy-traffic areas like ports along the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows California — which has some of the nation’s worst air pollution — to require truck manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission trucks over the next couple of decades. The rule applies to a wide range of trucks including box trucks, semitrailers and even large passenger pickups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Under the Clean Air Act, California has longstanding authority to address pollution from cars and trucks. Today’s announcement allows the state to take additional steps in reducing their transportation emissions through these new regulatory actions,\" said EPA Administrator Michael Regan, in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom applauded the state’s role as a leader in setting ambitious vehicle emission standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We’re leading the charge to get dirty trucks and buses — the most polluting vehicles — off our streets, and other states and countries are lining up to follow our lead,\" the Democrat said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA typically sets standards for tailpipe emissions from passenger cars, trucks and other vehicles, but California has historically been granted waivers to impose its own, stricter standards. Other states can then follow suit, and eight other states plan to adopt California’s truck standards, Newsom’s office said. In a letter last year, attorneys general from 15 states, Washington, D.C., and New York City urged the EPA to approve the California truck standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transportation sector accounts for nearly 40% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. Newsom has already moved to ban the sale of new cars that run entirely on gasoline by 2035. The EPA has not acted on those rules.[aside postID=\"news_11930562,news_11926059,news_11923540\" label=\"Related Stories\"]The new truck standards are aimed at companies that make trucks and those that own large quantities of them. Companies owning 50 or more trucks will have to report information to the state about how they use these trucks to ship goods and provide shuttle services. Manufacturers will have to sell a higher percentage of zero-emission vehicles starting in 2024. Depending on the class of truck, zero-emission ones will have to make up 40% to 75% of sales by 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has a long legacy of adopting stricter tailpipe emission standards, even before the federal Clean Air Act was signed into law, said Paul Cort, a lawyer with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have a vehicle problem,\" Cort said. \"We’re addicted to our cars and trucks, and that’s a big cause of the air pollution that we’re fighting.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, said it’s too soon to adopt the California standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The charging infrastructure is certainly not there,\" he said about powering stations for electric vehicles. \"And on top of the charging infrastructure, we have the grid issues.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California was hit this winter by atmospheric river storms that soaked much of the state, it has for years suffered from drought conditions, and in September, a brutal heat wave put its electricity \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/States%20HD%20Truck%20Waiver%20Comments_FINAL.pdf\">grid to the test (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement came as advocates are pushing for more ambitious tailpipe emissions standards in other states and at the national level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We don’t just fight for California, we fight for all of the communities,\" said Jan Victor Andasan, activist with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. The group advocates for better air quality in and around Los Angeles, the nation’s second-most populous city, which is known for its dense traffic and intense smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andasan and other environmental activists from across the country who are part of the Moving Forward Network, a 50-member group based at Occidental College in Los Angeles, met with EPA officials recently to discuss national regulations to limit emissions from trucks and other vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some in the trucking industry are concerned about how costly and burdensome the transition will be for truck drivers and companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The state and federal regulators collaborating on this unrealistic patchwork of regulations have no grasp on the real costs of designing, building, manufacturing and operating the trucks that deliver their groceries, clothes and goods,\" said Chris Spear, president of the American Trucking Associations, in a statement.[pullquote size='medium' align='left' citation=\"Chris Spear, president, American Trucking Associations\"]'The state and federal regulators collaborating on this unrealistic patchwork of regulations have no grasp on the real costs of designing, building, manufacturing and operating the trucks that deliver their groceries, clothes and goods.'[/pullquote]\"They will certainly feel the pain when these fanciful projections lead to catastrophic disruptions well beyond California’s borders,\" he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal pollution standards for heavy trucks are also getting tougher. The \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/business-pollution-us-environmental-protection-agency-climate-and-environment-0103a23e4b31d1f6ddb407fb43f9c8c1\">EPA released rules\u003c/a> that will cut nitrogen oxide pollution, which contributes to the formation of smog, by more than 80% in 2027. The agency will propose greenhouse gas emission limits this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency expects that the new standards and government investment will lead to zero-emissions electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks carrying most of the nation’s freight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California activists Andasan and Brenda Huerta Soto, an organizer with The People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, are troubled by the impact of pollution from trucks and other vehicles on communities with a large population of residents of color that live near busy ports in Los Angeles, Oakland and other cities as well as warehouse-dense inland areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huerta Soto works in Southern California’s Inland Empire, which a high concentration of trucks pass through to transport goods. On top of truck pollution, the many cars, trucks and trains that travel through the area burden residents with noise, odors and pollutants these vehicles emit, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have the technology, and we have the money\" to move toward zero-emission vehicles, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Associated Press writers Tom Krisher in Detroit and Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"California has already moved to ban the sale of new cars that run only on gasoline by 2035. As many as eight states could follow in implementing new truck standards, says Gov. Gavin Newsom.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1680294952,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":25,"wordCount":1047},"headData":{"title":"EPA Approves California's Plan to Phase Out Diesel Trucks | KQED","description":"California has already moved to ban the sale of new cars that run only on gasoline by 2035. As many as eight states could follow in implementing new truck standards, says Gov. Gavin Newsom.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"EPA Approves California's Plan to Phase Out Diesel Trucks","datePublished":"2023-03-31T20:12:20.000Z","dateModified":"2023-03-31T20:35:52.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"sourceUrl":"https://apnews.com/article/california-trucks-epa-greenhouse-gas-emissions-02e279026cf9d9b5c088f9ebdfad3fd9","nprByline":"Sophie Austin \u003cbr> The Associated Press","excludeFromSiteSearch":"Include","showOnAuthorArchivePages":"No","articleAge":"0","path":"/news/11945278/epa-approves-californias-plan-to-phase-out-diesel-trucks","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Biden administration cleared the way Friday for California’s plan to phase out a wide range of diesel-powered trucks, part of the state’s efforts to drastically cut planet-warming emissions and improve air quality in heavy-traffic areas like ports along the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows California — which has some of the nation’s worst air pollution — to require truck manufacturers to sell an increasing number of zero-emission trucks over the next couple of decades. The rule applies to a wide range of trucks including box trucks, semitrailers and even large passenger pickups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Under the Clean Air Act, California has longstanding authority to address pollution from cars and trucks. Today’s announcement allows the state to take additional steps in reducing their transportation emissions through these new regulatory actions,\" said EPA Administrator Michael Regan, in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom applauded the state’s role as a leader in setting ambitious vehicle emission standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We’re leading the charge to get dirty trucks and buses — the most polluting vehicles — off our streets, and other states and countries are lining up to follow our lead,\" the Democrat said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The EPA typically sets standards for tailpipe emissions from passenger cars, trucks and other vehicles, but California has historically been granted waivers to impose its own, stricter standards. Other states can then follow suit, and eight other states plan to adopt California’s truck standards, Newsom’s office said. In a letter last year, attorneys general from 15 states, Washington, D.C., and New York City urged the EPA to approve the California truck standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transportation sector accounts for nearly 40% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. Newsom has already moved to ban the sale of new cars that run entirely on gasoline by 2035. The EPA has not acted on those rules.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"postid":"news_11930562,news_11926059,news_11923540","label":"Related Stories "},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The new truck standards are aimed at companies that make trucks and those that own large quantities of them. Companies owning 50 or more trucks will have to report information to the state about how they use these trucks to ship goods and provide shuttle services. Manufacturers will have to sell a higher percentage of zero-emission vehicles starting in 2024. Depending on the class of truck, zero-emission ones will have to make up 40% to 75% of sales by 2035.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has a long legacy of adopting stricter tailpipe emission standards, even before the federal Clean Air Act was signed into law, said Paul Cort, a lawyer with environmental nonprofit Earthjustice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have a vehicle problem,\" Cort said. \"We’re addicted to our cars and trucks, and that’s a big cause of the air pollution that we’re fighting.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Wayne Winegarden, senior fellow at the Pacific Research Institute, said it’s too soon to adopt the California standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The charging infrastructure is certainly not there,\" he said about powering stations for electric vehicles. \"And on top of the charging infrastructure, we have the grid issues.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While California was hit this winter by atmospheric river storms that soaked much of the state, it has for years suffered from drought conditions, and in September, a brutal heat wave put its electricity \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/States%20HD%20Truck%20Waiver%20Comments_FINAL.pdf\">grid to the test (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The announcement came as advocates are pushing for more ambitious tailpipe emissions standards in other states and at the national level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We don’t just fight for California, we fight for all of the communities,\" said Jan Victor Andasan, activist with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. The group advocates for better air quality in and around Los Angeles, the nation’s second-most populous city, which is known for its dense traffic and intense smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andasan and other environmental activists from across the country who are part of the Moving Forward Network, a 50-member group based at Occidental College in Los Angeles, met with EPA officials recently to discuss national regulations to limit emissions from trucks and other vehicles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some in the trucking industry are concerned about how costly and burdensome the transition will be for truck drivers and companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The state and federal regulators collaborating on this unrealistic patchwork of regulations have no grasp on the real costs of designing, building, manufacturing and operating the trucks that deliver their groceries, clothes and goods,\" said Chris Spear, president of the American Trucking Associations, in a statement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"'The state and federal regulators collaborating on this unrealistic patchwork of regulations have no grasp on the real costs of designing, building, manufacturing and operating the trucks that deliver their groceries, clothes and goods.'","name":"pullquote","attributes":{"named":{"size":"medium","align":"left","citation":"Chris Spear, president, American Trucking Associations","label":""},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\"They will certainly feel the pain when these fanciful projections lead to catastrophic disruptions well beyond California’s borders,\" he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal pollution standards for heavy trucks are also getting tougher. The \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/business-pollution-us-environmental-protection-agency-climate-and-environment-0103a23e4b31d1f6ddb407fb43f9c8c1\">EPA released rules\u003c/a> that will cut nitrogen oxide pollution, which contributes to the formation of smog, by more than 80% in 2027. The agency will propose greenhouse gas emission limits this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency expects that the new standards and government investment will lead to zero-emissions electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks carrying most of the nation’s freight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California activists Andasan and Brenda Huerta Soto, an organizer with The People’s Collective for Environmental Justice, are troubled by the impact of pollution from trucks and other vehicles on communities with a large population of residents of color that live near busy ports in Los Angeles, Oakland and other cities as well as warehouse-dense inland areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Huerta Soto works in Southern California’s Inland Empire, which a high concentration of trucks pass through to transport goods. On top of truck pollution, the many cars, trucks and trains that travel through the area burden residents with noise, odors and pollutants these vehicles emit, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have the technology, and we have the money\" to move toward zero-emission vehicles, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"floatright"},"numeric":["floatright"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Associated Press writers Tom Krisher in Detroit and Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11945278/epa-approves-californias-plan-to-phase-out-diesel-trucks","authors":["byline_news_11945278"],"categories":["news_19906","news_8"],"tags":["news_29052","news_20962","news_31927","news_20023","news_21506","news_6252","news_30247","news_30178"],"featImg":"news_11945323","label":"news"},"news_11849204":{"type":"posts","id":"news_11849204","meta":{"index":"posts_1591205157","site":"news","id":"11849204","score":null,"sort":[1606866762000]},"guestAuthors":[],"slug":"californias-oil-and-gas-regulator-approved-hundreds-of-new-wells-without-required-oversight","title":"California's Oil and Gas Regulator Approved Hundreds of New Wells Without Required Oversight","publishDate":1606866762,"format":"standard","headTitle":"KQED News","labelTerm":{"site":"news"},"content":"\u003cp>The agency responsible for regulating California’s oil and natural gas industry violated state rules by approving hundreds of new wells in 2019 without proper review, according to a recent audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state Department of Finance’s \u003ca href=\"https://esd.dof.ca.gov/reports/reportPdf/5631D3F7-882E-EB11-9121-00505685B5D1/California%20Department%20of%20Conservation%20Underground%20Injection%20Control%20and%20Well%20Stimulation%20Treatment%20Programs%20Performance%20Audit%20November%202020\">review of California’s Geologic Energy Management Division\u003c/a> (CalGEM) found numerous violations, including inadequate environmental and safety reviews and a failure to follow current guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That news has environmental groups outraged, but hardly surprised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For far too long, we have seen the fox guarding the hen house with CalGEM,” said Monica Embrey, associate director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audit focused specifically on injection wells, used by oil and gas companies to expedite the drilling process and pump wastewater underground, where it risks contaminating the water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They've been injecting this toxic wastewater into what are supposed to be protected aquifers,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Groundwater that could be used for agriculture or municipal use now has oil industry waste in it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audit found CalGEM \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/audit-finds-california-oil-regulators-rampant-legal-violations-2020-11-25/\">approved hundreds\u003c/a> of these kinds of wells — which have been at the center of \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/oil-companies-are-profiting-from-illegal-spills-and-california-lets-them\">several large oil spills\u003c/a> across California — without proper review and approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our state oil and gas regulator has consistently looked the other way before rubber stamping approvals for hundreds of oil and gas wells and dangerous projects around the state,” Kretzmann said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalGEM regulators are supposed to first review the environmental and safety impacts of each overall project before issuing permits for individual wells. That initial assessment fell by the wayside in several instances, according to the audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"calgem\"]“Our oil and gas regulator pretended that that first step happened,” Kretzmann said. “The underlying review never happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audit also found that several drilling projects were approved by CalGEM officials who lacked the proper authorization to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, it found the agency authorized the expansion of existing projects without completing additional review. In one instance, the agency allowed a 640-acre project expansion — one that included the drilling of 400 new wells — without revisiting its initial review of the potential environmental or safety outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, CalGEM said it “appreciates the audit” and has already made some of the changes, and welcomes the additional suggested improvements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Finance has asked the agency to submit a plan within 60 days detailing how it intends to address the problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not the first state audit to find significant issues with the regulatory agency. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/uic/epa-oversight-californias-underground-injection-control-uic-program\">2011 audit\u003c/a> from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency discovered that the agency had failed to implement necessary measures to protect drinking water, and in a follow-up review three years later, found it had still not addressed those problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Embrey of the Sierra Club said the findings of the audit are evidence of a much larger problem at the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are understaffed and under-resourced,” she said. “And, I will say, there's a long, long revolving door between the regulators and the oil industry themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\n","blocks":[],"excerpt":"According to a new state audit, California’s Geologic Energy Management Division approved hundreds of new wells last year without proper environmental and safety review. Environmental groups are outraged, but hardly surprised.","status":"publish","parent":0,"modified":1606868754,"stats":{"hasAudio":false,"hasVideo":false,"hasChartOrMap":false,"iframeSrcs":[],"hasGoogleForm":false,"hasGallery":false,"hasHearkenModule":false,"hasPolis":false,"paragraphCount":19,"wordCount":540},"headData":{"title":"California's Oil and Gas Regulator Approved Hundreds of New Wells Without Required Oversight | KQED","description":"According to a new state audit, California’s Geologic Energy Management Division approved hundreds of new wells last year without proper environmental and safety review. Environmental groups are outraged, but hardly surprised.","ogTitle":"","ogDescription":"","ogImgId":"","twTitle":"","twDescription":"","twImgId":"","schema":{"@context":"http://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"California's Oil and Gas Regulator Approved Hundreds of New Wells Without Required Oversight","datePublished":"2020-12-01T23:52:42.000Z","dateModified":"2020-12-02T00:25:54.000Z","image":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png","isAccessibleForFree":"Y","publisher":{"@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","@id":"https://www.kqed.org/#organization","name":"KQED","url":"https://www.kqed.org","logo":"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"}}},"disqusIdentifier":"11849204 https://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=11849204","disqusUrl":"https://ww2.kqed.org/news/2020/12/01/californias-oil-and-gas-regulator-approved-hundreds-of-new-wells-without-required-oversight/","disqusTitle":"California's Oil and Gas Regulator Approved Hundreds of New Wells Without Required Oversight","nprByline":"Nina Sparling","path":"/news/11849204/californias-oil-and-gas-regulator-approved-hundreds-of-new-wells-without-required-oversight","audioTrackLength":null,"parsedContent":[{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The agency responsible for regulating California’s oil and natural gas industry violated state rules by approving hundreds of new wells in 2019 without proper review, according to a recent audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state Department of Finance’s \u003ca href=\"https://esd.dof.ca.gov/reports/reportPdf/5631D3F7-882E-EB11-9121-00505685B5D1/California%20Department%20of%20Conservation%20Underground%20Injection%20Control%20and%20Well%20Stimulation%20Treatment%20Programs%20Performance%20Audit%20November%202020\">review of California’s Geologic Energy Management Division\u003c/a> (CalGEM) found numerous violations, including inadequate environmental and safety reviews and a failure to follow current guidelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That news has environmental groups outraged, but hardly surprised.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For far too long, we have seen the fox guarding the hen house with CalGEM,” said Monica Embrey, associate director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audit focused specifically on injection wells, used by oil and gas companies to expedite the drilling process and pump wastewater underground, where it risks contaminating the water supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"ad","attributes":{"named":{"label":"fullwidth"},"numeric":["fullwidth"]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They've been injecting this toxic wastewater into what are supposed to be protected aquifers,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Groundwater that could be used for agriculture or municipal use now has oil industry waste in it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audit found CalGEM \u003ca href=\"https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/audit-finds-california-oil-regulators-rampant-legal-violations-2020-11-25/\">approved hundreds\u003c/a> of these kinds of wells — which have been at the center of \u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/oil-companies-are-profiting-from-illegal-spills-and-california-lets-them\">several large oil spills\u003c/a> across California — without proper review and approval.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our state oil and gas regulator has consistently looked the other way before rubber stamping approvals for hundreds of oil and gas wells and dangerous projects around the state,” Kretzmann said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalGEM regulators are supposed to first review the environmental and safety impacts of each overall project before issuing permits for individual wells. That initial assessment fell by the wayside in several instances, according to the audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"component","content":"","name":"aside","attributes":{"named":{"label":"related coverage ","tag":"calgem"},"numeric":[]}},{"type":"contentString","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Our oil and gas regulator pretended that that first step happened,” Kretzmann said. “The underlying review never happened.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The audit also found that several drilling projects were approved by CalGEM officials who lacked the proper authorization to do so.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Moreover, it found the agency authorized the expansion of existing projects without completing additional review. In one instance, the agency allowed a 640-acre project expansion — one that included the drilling of 400 new wells — without revisiting its initial review of the potential environmental or safety outcomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, CalGEM said it “appreciates the audit” and has already made some of the changes, and welcomes the additional suggested improvements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Department of Finance has asked the agency to submit a plan within 60 days detailing how it intends to address the problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is not the first state audit to find significant issues with the regulatory agency. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/uic/epa-oversight-californias-underground-injection-control-uic-program\">2011 audit\u003c/a> from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency discovered that the agency had failed to implement necessary measures to protect drinking water, and in a follow-up review three years later, found it had still not addressed those problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Embrey of the Sierra Club said the findings of the audit are evidence of a much larger problem at the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are understaffed and under-resourced,” she said. “And, I will say, there's a long, long revolving door between the regulators and the oil industry themselves.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>","attributes":{"named":{},"numeric":[]}}],"link":"/news/11849204/californias-oil-and-gas-regulator-approved-hundreds-of-new-wells-without-required-oversight","authors":["byline_news_11849204"],"categories":["news_8"],"tags":["news_27938","news_21506","news_4198","news_17781"],"featImg":"news_11811095","label":"news"}},"programsReducer":{"possible":{"id":"possible","title":"Possible","info":"Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. 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