Climate 411

Clean Air Act Rules Will Save U.S. $82 Billion on Health Care

The Clean Air Act was originally designed to save lives, protect public health and safeguard the environment – and it has been a clear success story on those fronts.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) own analyses show that Clean Air Act rules yield hundreds of billions of dollars in economic benefits. These include the value of avoided premature mortality, negative health impacts, lost worker productivity due to illness, and environmental improvements such as increased visibility and agricultural productivity.

Now EDF and Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) have released a new report that takes a closer look at one segment of those benefits.

Our new analysis [PDF] finds that four major rules of the Clean Air Act will yield more than $82 billion in Medicare, Medicaid and other health care savings for America through 2021.

The report is called Saving Lives and Reducing Health Care Costs: How Clean Air Rules Benefit the Nation [PDF].

It looks at four new rules recently proposed or finalized by EPA:

Those four rules are expected to lower emissions rates of a number of air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, dioxins, acid gases, smog, and soot.

Reducing levels of those dangerous substances will, in turn, reduce rates of premature mortality, chronic bronchitis, heart attacks, respiratory hospital admissions, and emergency room visits related to asthma.

That, in turn, will result in health care savings of $82 billion, including;

  • $44.6 billion in Medicare and federal-level health care savings
  • $2.8 billion in state-level Medicaid and other state and local savings
  • $8.3 billion in out-of-pocket individual savings
  • $24.7 billion in private insurance savings

Our report is one more piece of evidence that clean air rules are a good investment for America. We can save lives, protect public health, and save billions of taxpayer dollars that are currently being spent by programs like Medicare to treat pollution-related illnesses.

Our report also shows that the polluter-led attempts to roll back clean air rules would not reduce costs, but rather shift costs from polluters onto the American people.

Our new report also includes a second analysis of health care savings expected from the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, which finds implementation of these programs could yield over $612 billion between 2000 and 2020 in reduced Medicare, Medicaid, out-of-pocket and private insurance spending.

You can read the full report here [PDF].

Also posted in Clean Air Act, Economics, News / Tagged | Comments are closed

A Great Day for Clean Air

Today, a bipartisan majority in the U. S. Senate voted down Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) dirty air resolution, which would have allowed upwind states to dump air pollution on their neighbors.

The vote was 41 to 56 against the resolution.

Thanks to this vote, the Environmental Protection Agency will keep its authority to enforce the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSPAR), which will save up to 34,000 lives each year.

Here’s what EDF’s Fred Krupp had to say:

Today, the U.S. Senate did the right thing and defeated a measure that would have put American lives and health at risk. We appreciate the stand taken by those Senators who voted against S.J. Res. 27.

Sen. Rand Paul’s resolution would have blocked the long-overdue Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which protects American families from the smokestack pollution that drifts across state lines and causes thousands of premature deaths each year. Sen. Paul’s effort to undermine our clean air laws was misguided and dangerous.

Unfortunately, the attacks against our clean air laws continue in spite of today’s victory. In fact, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Dan Coats (R-IN) have already introduced other legislation to undermine the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and another critical protection, the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule for power plants.

We need our Senators to continue to fight for clean air and public health, and defeat any and all legislation that would leave us vulnerable to mercury emissions and other dangerous air pollution.

Also posted in Clean Air Act, News, Policy / Comments are closed

A Bad Neighbor Bill Hits the Senate Floor

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will take his “Bad Neighbor” bill to the Senate floor tomorrow morning.

Sen. Paul’s bill (S.J. Res. 27) would undo the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule – also known as the “Good Neighbor” rule.

The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSPAR) would protect downwind states from getting their neighbors’ air pollution dumped on them. It could save up to 34,000 lives a year – if it’s not stopped by Sen. Paul’s bill.

EDF President Fred Krupp said this about Sen. Paul’s decision to push his anti-clean-air measure in the Senate:

Senator Paul’s attempt to block the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule takes anti-government ideology to an extreme.  His bill would stop a long-overdue rule to protect American families from smokestack pollution that drifts across state lines — and causes thousands of premature deaths each year.  If polluters are allowed to continue dumping their pollution in neighboring states, we will all be in serious trouble.

Of course, EDF is not the only group that’s opposed to Sen. Paul’s measure. A group of more than a dozen of America’s leading health organizations sent a letter to the Senate urging them to support CSPAR.

We’ve posted about CSPAR — and Rand Paul’s misguided attempts to undo it – before, but if you want to know more about the issue, check out our fact sheet.

Also posted in Clean Air Act, News, Policy / Read 1 Response

Power to the Polluters: Rand Paul Is Eroding States’ Right to Clean Air

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), in an attempt to forward his own narrow agenda, is attacking clean air and public health safeguards.

Sen. Paul has his sights set on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, also called the “Good Neighbor” rule.  Undoing this rule would mean that one state can continue to dump its pollution into another state, sickening its neighbors. It would mean undoing downwind states’ ability to meet public health standards for their own citizens.

The current rule, the one that Sen. Paul seeks to stop, builds on progress made under the Bush Administration to rein in power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx). This soot and smog pollution not only impacts the people living in the shadows of smokestacks, but also travels across the country — causing deaths in downwind states, as well as other serious adverse health impacts like heart attacks and severe asthma episodes.

The impacts from upwind air pollution fall hardest on children and the elderly, but they can affect everyone, including otherwise healthy adults.

This is part of the reason why the Bush Administration initiated the federal Clean Air Interstate Program (CAIR) in 2005. Although the Bush Administration approach was deemed inadequate by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, it at least made progress cleaning up the air while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) crafted a replacement.

In the summer of 2010, EPA proposed its replacement rule to address the Court’s concerns. Now, over a year later, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) is set to take effect in January.

In 2014, CSAPR will

  • save up to 34,000 lives
  • prevent 400,000 asthma attacks
  • avoid 15,000 heart attacks
  • improve air quality for over 240 million Americans.

The monetized value of the benefits from this rule is up to $280 billion per year, which greatly outweighs the costs of about $2.4 billion.

But Sen. Paul is trying to unravel this crucial public health safeguard. Paul’s Congressional Review Act (CRA) bill would throw out CSAPR and bar EPA from producing a substantially similar rule.

Some claim that the Bush-era CAIR rule would be left in place, but that assumption makes no sense and gambles with public health. CAIR has been deemed unlawful (indeed, fatally flawed) by the federal court of appeals, so you can bet that there will be no shortage of power company attorneys that seek to block any efforts to restore CAIR. Plus, whatever the ultimate legal outcome, American families need the new, better “Good Neighbor” rule to protect their health from out-of-state pollution.

Instead, the end result of Sen. Paul’s anti-clean air legislation will very likely be that we have no clean air protections in place across the eastern United States to limit the smokestack pollution that drifts across borders — and directly interferes with states’ power to restore healthy air for their citizens. Indeed, if Sen. Paul’s bill passes, some companies could decide to turn off already installed pollution control equipment, leading to an increase in emissions.

Sen. Paul’s action fails to consider some very important economic facts:

  • Many power plants already have pollution control technologies installed, or plans to install them.
  • This rule will provide up to $280 billion in benefits every year once in effect.
  • Undoing this rule will harm the many businesses that made investments in clean air technologies and cleaner generating sources.
  • Several companies are working hard to defend the “Good Neighbor” rule against legal attacks — most of which are being made by interests that have simply refused to make the sensible, long-term investments that the rule would require.

Sen. Paul’s colleagues in the Senate should also consider the job creation potential from CSAPR. Construction of a single wet scrubber to control SO2 emissions provides about 775 full-time jobs over the life of the project —  and Alstom, a global corporate leader in providing and transporting power, estimates that there will be around 100 such projects that result from CSAPR and the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule for power plants. This is not surprising given that implementing just the first phase of the earlier CAIR program led to an estimated 200,000 jobs in the air pollution control and measurement industry [PDF].

Incredibly, Sen. Paul’s own state would suffer the consequences of his bill. In addition to thousands of lives across the U.S., Sen. Paul’s bill would risk up to 1,404 Kentucky lives each year.

It’s clear that it is in the best interest of our health and the economy — both in Kentucky and across the eastern United States — to let CSAPR proceed as planned. The Senate should not yield to Sen. Paul’s extreme bill that puts polluters’ profit ahead of people’s health.

Also posted in Clean Air Act, News, Policy / Read 2 Responses

Support for EPA from Doctors and Scientists

You’ve probably seen a lot of nasty attacks against EPA in media report lately. You are not alone.

As EDF’s Susanne Brooks writes in our Market Forces blog:

Given that EPA is in the midst of finalizing some of the most critical regulation protecting American human health from poisonous air pollution, one might think that a simple ‘thank you’ might be in order. Instead, EPA is facing unfounded attacks from several angles.

Susanne’s blog post cites some “egregious” examples of people who refuse to believe that air pollution is bad for your health — including one newspaper columnist who recently demanded that EPA “show him the bodies” of air pollution victims.

Susanne then compiles a list of responses from leaders in the scientific community. Those responses provide powerful evidence to support EPA’s efforts to protect our air.

The most compelling statement may be from Lynn Goldman, Dean and Professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and a member of EDF’s Board of Trustees. Susanne writes:

She refers to the family members who can actually point to the bodies of loved ones who ‘dropped dead from a heart attack after breathing too much air on a Code Red day.’

Read more in Susanne’s full post, Thank You EPA.

Also posted in Clean Air Act / Comments are closed

The Clean Air Act: Good for Our Health AND Our Economy

The Clean Air Act and its amendments prevent millions of premature deaths, significantly reduce illnesses, and save trillions of dollars for American families. But  those in Congress who are working to stall EPA actions still claim that Clean Air Act regulations are too costly. Fortunately there’s some new and conclusive evidence to show that they’re wrong.

The EPA’s just-released cost-benefit analysis of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments leaves no room for argument:  we simply cannot afford a world without regulations on the harmful pollution that the Clean Air Act is designed to fight. 

This comes as no surprise. The Clean Air Act has been saving lives, improving the health of American children, and saving us trillions of dollars for years now.  But this report is a new and definitive confirmation of just how critical this law is to the health of the American people — and to our economy.  

EPA sets a gold standard in economic modeling with this report . It provides an excellent, no-nonsense analysis of both the costs of complying with the Clean Air Act Amendments and the benefits. Benefits are the clear winner. From 1990 to 2020, they manifest in the form of avoided premature deaths, reduction in illnesses and associated health care costs, and improved ecological and welfare impacts (like increased agricultural yields and better visibility conditions)

The report finds that, at the central estimate, and after taking costs into account, the net benefits of the Clean Air Act Amendments are $12 trillion in present value. Yes, that’s TRILLION.  

The report also finds that the benefits of the Clean Air Act outweigh the costs by a factor of more than 30 to one.  Let me say that again:  30 to one.  And that’s a more modest estimate; the reports high benefits estimate exceeds costs by 90 times.  

These estimates don’t even account for some benefits that are more difficult to monetize, such as health effects from air toxics, and chronic respiratory diseases other than chronic bronchitis.  They also don’t mention the pain and suffering associated with illnesses, so the benefits estimate should be seen as conservative.  

Let’s look at one of the most important results:  health impacts.  Last year alone, the Clean Air Act Amendments saved more than 160,000 lives, prevented more than 85,000 emergency room visits, prevented millions of cases of respiratory problems (including bronchitis and asthma), enhanced productivity by preventing 13 million lost workdays, and prevented 3.2 million lost school days (just to name a few of the benefits).

In the year 2020, the Clean Air Act Amendments are projected to prevent more than 230,000 early deaths and provide benefits reaching approximately $2 trillion.  All of which makes it mind-boggling that opponents in Congress continue to push back against this successful law.

The enormous benefits of the Clean Air Act are nothing new.  EPA’s earlier cost-benefit analysis of the law, from the years 1970 to 1990, showed that the net benefits in present value over the period were nearly $22 trillion, and that the benefits outweighed the costs by 40 to one.

Here’s more good news:  protecting children from neurotoxins now will give us workers with higher IQs later — and that’s something that also turns out to come with real economic benefits. The latest study by Harvard’s Dale Jorgenson and his co-authors shows that the Clean Air Act has boosted productivity and growth: Gross Domestic Product in 2010 is up to 1.5% higher than it would have been without the Clean Air Act. 

The bottom line is that the Clean Air Act and its amendments have left Americans enormously better off – in terms of health, productivity, and economic growth.  Why stop now?

Also posted in Clean Air Act, Economics, Policy / Read 1 Response