Enforce the Clean Air Act
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There's an old saying: If you have your health, you have everything.
The recent Post-Gazette series highlighting air pollution in southwestern Pennsylvania, "Mapping Mortality," brings this home dramatically.
The days when a near constant pall of smog hung over our skies are long gone, and we are all healthier for it. A major reason the air we breathe today is cleaner than that of our grandparents' generation is the Clean Air Act.
Enforcement of this landmark 1970 law has reduced the six most common air pollutants by more than 60 percent while our economy has grown by 209 percent, proving that economic growth and pollution reduction can take place simultaneously.
This pollution reduction has saved tens of thousands of lives and prevented millions of asthma and heart attacks, along with countless trips to the emergency room. Aside from the human suffering avoided, think of the reduction in health care costs and the increased productivity of workers not needing sick days.
Despite this undeniable track record of success, discussions continue in Congress about restricting the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to enforce the Clean Air Act.
The same argument is made today that was made 40 years ago: that cleaning our air will cost jobs, despite the more than tripling of our gross domestic product since passage of the Clean Air Act.
This law simply requires that large polluters -- not small, medium-sized or even most big businesses -- use the best available technology to reduce the dangerous pollutants they emit into the air we all breathe. Most of these pollution sources are electric power plants, which must install new technology when they upgrade or expand. New power plants and the very largest industrial pollution emitters must also follow these rules.
So, most businesses are exempt, and many power companies have already included new pollution controls in their business plans going forward. The benefits of these measures far outweigh the costs -- in economic and certainly in human terms.
First Published December 22, 2010 12:00 am
