Diesel fumes cause lung cancer, the World Health Organization declared Tuesday,
and experts said they were more carcinogenic than secondhand cigarette smoke.
The W.H.O. decision, the first to elevate diesel to the “known carcinogen”
level, may eventually affect some American workers who are heavily exposed to
exhaust. It is particularly relevant to poor countries, where trucks,
generators, and farm and factory machinery routinely belch clouds of sooty smoke
and fill the air with sulfurous particulates.
The United States and other wealthy nations have less of a problem because they
require modern diesel engines to burn much cleaner than they did even a decade
ago. Most industries, like mining, already have limits on the amount of diesel
fumes to which workers may be exposed.
The medical director of the American Cancer Society praised the ruling by the
W.H.O.’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, saying his group “has for
a long time had concerns about diesel.”
The cancer society is likely to come to the same conclusion the next time its
scientific committee meets, said the director, Dr. Otis W. Brawley.
“I don’t think it’s bad to have a diesel car,” Dr. Brawley added. “I don’t think
it’s good to breathe its exhaust. I’m not concerned about people who walk past a
diesel vehicle, I’m a little concerned about people like toll collectors, and
I’m very concerned about people like miners, who work where exhaust is
concentrated.”
Debra T. Silverman, a cancer researcher for the United States government who
headed an influential study published in March that led to Tuesday’s decision,
said she was “totally in support” of the W.H.O. ruling and expected that the
government would soon follow suit in declaring diesel exhaust a carcinogen.
Three separate federal agencies already classify diesel exhaust as a “likely
carcinogen,” a “potential occupational carcinogen” or “reasonably anticipated to
be a human carcinogen.”
Dr. Silverman, chief of environmental epidemiology for the National Cancer
Institute, said her study of 50 years of exposure to diesel fumes by 12,000
miners showed that nonsmoking miners who were heavily exposed to diesel fumes
for years had seven times the normal lung cancer risk of nonsmokers.
The W.H.O. decision was announced Tuesday in Lyon, France, after a weeklong
scientific meeting. It also said diesel exhaust was a possible cause of bladder
cancer. Diesel exhaust now shares the W.H.O.’s Group 1 carcinogen status with
smoking, asbestos, ultraviolet radiation, alcohol and other elements that pose
cancer risks.
Dr. Silverman said her research indicated that occupational diesel exposure was
a far greater lung cancer risk than passive cigarette smoking, but a much
smaller risk than smoking two packs a day. For years, the Environmental
Protection Agency, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
and the National Toxicology Program of the National Institutes of Health have
rated diesel as a potential, not proven, carcinogen.
The Diesel Technology Forum, which represents car and truck companies and others
that make diesel engines, reacted cautiously to the W.H.O. ruling, noting that
modern diesel engines used in the United States and other wealthy countries burn
low sulfur fuel, so new trucks and buses emit 98 percent less particulates than
old ones did and 99 percent less nitrogen oxide, which adds to ozone buildup.
Allen Schaeffer, the forum’s executive director, said the studies considered by
the W.H.O. “gave more weight to studies of exposure from technology from the
1950s, when there was no regulation.”
Ultra-low-sulfur fuel was introduced in 2000 and became mandatory in 2006, he
said, and about a quarter of the American truck fleet was built after that
mandate was passed. The government estimates that the entire truck fleet is
replaced every 12 to 15 years, he added.
Many studies have suggested links between diesel and lung cancer, but Dr.
Silverman said hers was the first to measure with precision how much diesel
exhaust each group of mineworkers was exposed to. Her study clearly established
that the more a miner was exposed to diesel, the greater his cancer risk, she
said.
“Now we need to focus on managing exposures to diesel exhaust,” Dr. Brawley
said.
Resisting strenuous last-minute lobbying by some of the nation’s biggest
utilities, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday a final rule
requiring power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants
by roughly 90 percent within the next five years.
This is a big victory for environmentalists and scientists who have worked for
20 years to regulate these pollutants — and an even bigger one for the public.
When fully effective, the rule could save as many as 11,000 premature deaths a
year and avoid countless unnecessary illnesses.
The decision compensates, at least in part, for the White House’s lamentable
decision two months ago to reject stricter health standards for smog. That and
the administration’s failure to give full-throated support to climate change
legislation last year had disheartened many of the president’s environmental
supporters.
The administration can now legitimately point to three measures that will almost
certainly lead to cleaner power plants and vehicles, more breathable air and
fewer greenhouse gas emissions: a ruling in July setting new limits on
interstate emissions of sulfur dioxide, the main acid rain gas; a landmark deal
announced in November aimed at doubling automobile fuel efficiency by 2025; and,
now, the new mercury rule.
Some power companies and their Republican allies argued that the rules will
impose high costs with relatively little payoff, but the evidence does not
support that view. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates the annual cost
of compliance at $10 billion, compared with annual savings in health costs of
between $37 billion and $90 billion by 2016. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and
can adversely affect the nervous system in children; other toxins covered by the
rule can cause asthma and cancer.
Nor is there merit in the argument that the technology for controlling these
pollutants is not available. One-third of the states have already imposed their
own rules on such toxics, and several forward-looking utilities have installed
pollution controls that can be upgraded without great effort or expense to meet
the new federal standards.
Some old coal-fired power plants will have to be shut down, but many had been
scheduled for retirement and others can be retrofitted or replaced with cleaner
gas-fired facilities. The E.P.A. will also have flexibility to give extensions
to companies that can demonstrate they need an extra year to comply.
The rule, which industry can afford, is a long overdue measure for cleaner air
and a healthier America.
WASHINGTON
— President Obama abandoned a contentious new air pollution rule on Friday,
buoying business interests that had lobbied heavily against it, angering
environmentalists who called the move a betrayal and unnerving his own top
environmental regulators.
The president rejected a proposed rule from the Environmental Protection Agency
that would have significantly reduced emissions of smog-causing chemicals,
saying that it would impose too severe a burden on industry and local
governments at a time of economic distress.
Business groups and Republicans in Congress had complained that meeting the new
standard, which governs emissions of so-called ground-level ozone, would cost
billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The White House announcement came barely an hour after another weak jobs report
from the Labor Department and in the midst of an intensifying political debate
over the impact of federal regulations on job creation that is already a major
focus of the presidential campaign.
The president is planning a major address next week on new measures to stimulate
employment. Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail have harshly
criticized a number of the administration’s environmental and health
regulations, which they say are depressing hiring and forcing the export of
jobs.
The E.P.A., following the recommendation of its scientific advisers, had
proposed lowering the so-called ozone standard of 75 parts per billion, set at
the end of the Bush administration, to a stricter standard of 60 to 70 parts per
billion. The change would have thrown hundreds of American counties out of
compliance with the Clean Air Act and required a major enforcement effort by
state and local officials, as well as new emissions controls at industries
across the country.
The administration will try to follow the more lenient Bush administration
standard set in 2008 until a scheduled reconsideration of acceptable pollution
limits in 2013. Environmental advocates vowed on Friday to challenge that
standard in court, saying it is too weak to protect public health adequately.
Ozone, when combined with other compounds to form smog, contributes to a variety
of ailments, including heart problems, asthma and other lung disorders.
Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, has pushed hard for a tougher ozone
standard, telling associates that it was one of the most important regulatory
initiatives she would handle during her tenure. But she found herself on the
losing end of a fight with top White House economic and political advisers, who
were persuaded by industry arguments that the 2008 ozone rule was due to be
reviewed in two years anyway and who were concerned about the impact on state,
local and tribal governments that would bear much of the burden of compliance.
The impact would have been felt heavily in a band of Midwest and Great Plains
states that are not themselves major sources of ozone pollution and that will be
critical 2012 electoral battlegrounds.
In a statement, the president reiterated his commitment to environmental
concerns, but added: “At the same time, I have continued to underscore the
importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty,
particularly as our economy continues to recover. With that in mind, and after
careful consideration, I have requested that Administrator Jackson withdraw the
draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time.”
In words of reassurance directed at Ms. Jackson and the agency she heads, the
president said that his commitment to the work of the agency was “unwavering.”
“And my administration will continue to vigorously oppose efforts to weaken
E.P.A.’s authority under the Clean Air Act or dismantle the progress we have
made,” he said.
Ms. Jackson accepted the White House decision with a terse statement: “We will
revisit the ozone standard, in compliance with the Clean Air Act.”
She pointed with pride to the administration’s record of establishing a range of
other air quality safeguards for power plants, manufacturing facilities and
vehicles that will also help to reduce ozone pollution across the country.
Ms. Jackson had made clear her intention to follow her scientific advisers and
set a new standard within the more restrictive range by the end of this year.
She has told associates that her success in addressing this problem would be a
reflection of her ability to perform her job. The agency sent the now-rejected
standards to the White House in July with the expectation that they would be
issued by Aug. 31.
While some senior agency officials expressed disappointment with the decision,
they also said they understood that it was their job to offer their best
technical advice to the White House and that the ultimate decision rested with
the president, who has to stand for re-election and consider other factors.
Reaction from environmental advocates ranged from disappointment to fury, with
several noting that in just the past month the administration had tentatively
approved drilling in the Arctic, given an environmental green light to the
1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Texas and opened 20
million more acres of the Gulf of Mexico to drilling.
Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said,
“Today’s announcement from the White House that they will retreat from
implementing the much-needed — and long-overdue — ozone pollution standard is
deeply disappointing and grants an item on Big Oil’s wish list at the expense of
the health of children, seniors and the infirm.” The center is a liberal
research group with close ties to the White House.
Bill McKibben, an activist leading a two-week White House protest against the
pipeline project which has resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, said that the
latest move was “flabbergasting.”
“Somehow we need to get back the president we thought we elected in 2008,” he
said.
Cass R. Sunstein, who leads the White House office that reviews all major
regulations, said he was carefully scrutinizing proposed rules across the
government to ensure that they are cost efficient and based on the best current
science. He said in a letter to Ms. Jackson that the studies on which the
E.P.A.’s proposed rule is based were completed in 2006 and that new assessments
were already under way.
The issue had become a flashpoint between the administration and Republicans in
Congress, who held up the proposed ozone rule as a test of the White House’s
commitment to regulatory reform and job creation. Imposing the new rule before
the 2012 election would have created political problems for the administration
and for Democrats nationwide seeking election in a brittle economy.
Leaders of major business groups — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the
National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute and the
Business Roundtable — met with Ms. Jackson and with top White House officials
this summer seeking to moderate, delay or kill the rule. They told William M.
Daley, the White House chief of staff, that the rule would be very costly to
industry and would hurt Mr. Obama’s chances for a second term.
John Engler, a former governor of Michigan and chairman of the Business
Roundtable, said Friday in a statement: “Creating U.S. jobs and providing more
economic certainty for all Americans, especially on the heels of today’s news
that the U.S. unemployment rate remains persistently high, is our greatest
challenge. If President Obama’s speech next week is as positive as this decision
was today, it will be a success.”
Representative Eric Cantor, the majority leader, said this week that the House
would review the ozone rule, which he called the most onerous of all proposed
regulations.
“This effective ban or restriction on construction and industrial growth for
much of America is possibly the most harmful of all the currently anticipated
Obama administration regulations,” Mr. Cantor wrote. He said that the impact
would be felt across the economy and cost as much as $1 trillion and millions of
jobs over the next decade.
