1-27-2022 School Choice

At a Capitol Hill news conference today, Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation released a study by Kay Jones, a top environmental advisor to President Jimmy Carter, contradicting Environmental Protection Agency claims that 15,000 Americans die prematurely every year from exposure to fine particulate matter. Particulate matter is very fine material emitted into the atmosphere. The size of particulate matter discussed by the EPA -- 2.5 microns -- is roughly 28 times smaller than the width of a single human hair.

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) have proposed legislation to establish a new federal program to buy health coverage for five million children. Sen. Hatch has characterized their proposal as the "free market approach" to insuring children. Unfortunately, neither the bill (S. 525) nor its funding mechanism (S. 526) have been fairly represented. 1. "This is not an entitlement."1

On November 27, 1996, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Carol Browner announced a plan to impose new national air quality standards. Specifically, the proposal to alter the current National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) calls for more severe restrictions on ground-level ozone and microscopic dust particles, called particulate matter (PM). The EPA must decide by July 19 of this year whether or not to alter the current standards. If implemented, the new standards would put into place the most massive, far-reaching environmental mandates of the decade. But because the proposed standards are backed by weak science, there is an enormous degree of uncertainty as to whether the measures would produce the promised results.

In 1994, the American people rejected the Clinton health care plan and others like it that would have substituted the judgment of politicians and bureaucrats for that of patients and their doctors. Yet, that victory has proved short-lived. Today, lawmakers who fought government-run health care three years ago, some of whom even rode into office on the issue, are now its biggest supporters.

Recent efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implement a new air quality standard for fine particulate matter have come under attack. The shaky scientific underpinnings and potential high cost of the proposed standard have caused many observers, including the Department of Transportation and other federal agencies, to show concern that there may be no justification for spending billions of dollars for a new PM2.5 standard. To refute these claims, the EPA cites its own Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC) staff report as evidence of scientific consensus on the need for a PM2.5 standard. The staff report, as well as a majority of CASAC's members, supported a new standard in a 19-2 vote, but a close look at CASAC's May 16th and 17th discussion of the PM2.5 standard shows that no consensus was reached on the issue of health benefits resulting from a new standard. In fact, only two CASAC members voted for a standard as low as that imposed by EPA Administrator Carol Browner. During its regular review of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the EPA decided to propose a new air quality standard for particulate matter 2.5 microns and less in diameter (PM2.5). The standard would implement an annual and daily standard for PM2.5 at 50 and 15 micrograms per cubic meter, respectively. The daily standard would take an average of the 98th percentile of daily PM2.5 levels over three years, which would effectively allow a community to exceed the standard about six times a year. The annual standard would be based on a three-year average of annual PM2.5 concentrations, allowing only 15 micrograms per cubic meter.

Letters have been dispatched from the desk of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol Browner in a last-ditch effort to garner support for the agency's proposed National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone and particulate matter, according to Citizens for a Sound Economy, a Washington-based free-market advocacy group. "Given the enormous unpopularity of the proposed regulations, Administrator Browner has found it necessary to make promises of leniency -- promises that could very well be illegal," said CSE vice president Matt Kibbe.

Is the Environmental Protection Agency in retreat? Or is it merely engaging in political spin-control? The agency's announcement that it would ask a federal court to extend the public comment period for its proposed rules governing tiny dust and bacteria particles -- which the agency claims pose a significant threat to public health -- clearly results from a public backlash against a hurried process designed to shut out the public and stifle a serious debate over the merits of EPA's new rule.

Carol Browner, administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is wrong in claiming that her agency's proposal to impose more restrictive standards on air quality is "not about outdoor barbecues or lawnmowers" or "whether we can have fireworks on the Fourth of July," according to Dr. Wayne Brough, director of research at Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE).