Global Clean Air

EDF and Brazilian leaders lay the groundwork for a national air quality plan

By Sirianna Blanck / Published: October 24, 2023

What’s new: This summer, Global Clean Air’s Senior Policy Director, Sergio Sanchez, and Program Manager, Melanie Scruggs, with consultant Armando Retama, visited Brazil to help leaders in the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change start laying the groundwork for a national strategy on air quality. Such a strategy would deliver significant population health benefits and strengthen Brazil’s existing climate action plan, as well as serve as a model for other countries.

What we know: It is not currently possible to create a comprehensive understanding of air quality in Brazil, due to uneven monitoring from state to state. The new Ministry of Environment and Climate Change is dedicated to solving this problem. Broadly speaking, the main sources of air pollution in Brazil are understood to include transportation and local industries. Other sources vary by region but can include dust storms during the dry season, agricultural burning and wildfires.

Next steps: Brazil’s leaders understand that they can’t combat air pollution until they know where it’s coming from. That’s why a critical next step will likely be to collect high-quality air quality data nationally. Making this happen will include such actions as:

Creating long-term, sustainable funding mechanisms for air quality management (AQM).
Updating current air quality monitoring guidelines.
Deploying and upgrading monitoring networks across the country.
Strengthening collaborations between all levels of government as well as global partners.

Photo: Rebeca Hoefler/MMA

Opportunities: With the help of a national strategy and better air quality data, Brazil has the chance to make big strides toward cleaner air. Other actions that national leaders are considering include:

Adding air quality to its plans for sustainable development and for health and transportation, which are currently being updated.
Launching a national campaign to generate long-term public support for improving air quality.
Deploying federal grants to help states, cities and civil society invest in better monitoring.
Securing funding from global donors.
Replicating aspects of São Paulo’s successful AQM program in other regions.

Moving forward: Brazil and EDF aim to co-design a National Air Quality Strategy by March of 2024, incorporating novel monitoring and policy approaches used in EDF’s past work around the world. The national strategy will include guidelines for AQM and monitoring plans for priority “air basins,” including the metropolitan region in the Federal District of Brasilia.

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Methane and Health: Crucial Intersections between Climate Mitigation and Public Health

By EDF Web Team / Published: September 21, 2023

New report identifies near-term actions to reduce methane emissions and benefit human health

Editor’s note: This post was adapted from an article originally published on RESOLVE’s Insights blog. Access the original article here.

EDF is pleased to announce the release of the report “Methane and Health Dialogue Series” during New York Climate Week. The report, prepared by our partners at RESOLVE, summarizes key findings and recommendations from the recent Methane and Health Dialogue Series, convened by EDF and facilitated by RESOLVE. The virtual dialogue series brought together experts on agriculture, oil and gas, public health and waste management from around the world to identify near-term opportunities to reduce methane emissions and improve human health.

Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas with 80 times the global warming potential of CO2 over a 20-year period. However, it is also short-lived in Earth’s atmosphere, degrading in a matter of decades rather than centuries. This means that rapidly reducing methane emissions is one of the most promising ways to rapidly mitigate climate change.

The vast majority of methane emissions come from three sectors: Agriculture, oil and gas and waste. Today, emissions from all three sectors are rising and their rise is projected to continue under business-as-usual scenarios – but in all three sectors, mitigation strategies exist that, if implemented today, could rapidly reduce planetary methane to levels that would slow global warming and help keep a 1.5° C goal in sight.

While awareness of methane’s climate mitigation potential is growing, the public health benefits of cutting methane are less well understood. For example, methane is often emitted by the oil and gas industry as part of normal operations. Some oil producers use flares to burn methane gas, a process which also releases co-pollutants such as Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and fine particle pollution (PM2.5) that are linked to asthma, cardiovascular disease and premature death. Taking action to address flaring can reduce methane emissions as well as the associated negative health impacts in nearby communities.

We recently kicked off these efforts at an exciting event co-hosted by The Global Climate & Health Alliance at New York Climate Week, “Methane Matters: Exploring the Health Impacts of Methane Mitigation,” which explored opportunities to reduce methane emissions and improve health, building on the results of the Dialogue Series. We look forward to supporting future initiatives that broaden our understanding of climate change, human health and the strategies that can create a healthier future for our communities and the planet.

Access the report here: https://www.edf.org/methane-and-health-dialogues

FIGURE 1: A chart showing the potential pathways to improve human health through productivity improvements in the livestock industry, which would decrease the methane intensity of the sector.

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Speak now or forever hold your breath

By Vanessa Glavinskas / Published: June 15, 2023

Originally posted on EDF.

A car with grey exhaust pouring out of its tailpipe

Exposure to high levels of tailpipe pollution is linked to asthma, heart disease and cancer. (Getty)

Right now, almost every vehicle on U.S. roads emits tailpipe pollution.

That means every time you idle in heavy traffic — or spend time in a bustling city or near a major transportation hub — you’re being exposed to a steady stream of pollutants, including soot, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides and carbon monoxide.

This tailpipe pollution is harmful for many reasons. Exposure to high levels is linked to asthma, heart disease, even cancer. Scientists from the Environmental Defense Fund found that even small increases in exposure are associated with increased health care costs. And transportation is the biggest source of planet-warming pollution in the United States.

Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed two rules that would limit the amount of tailpipe pollution that automakers can release into the atmosphere. The rules would dramatically clean up the air we breathe while reducing almost 10 billion tons of climate pollution.

Tell the EPA to cut tailpipe pollution and green-light clean cars!

If the standards are adopted, the EPA estimates that two-thirds of new passenger cars and trucks sold in the U.S. would be free of tailpipe pollution by 2032, and up to half of certain types of new medium- and heavy-duty vehicles — including urban delivery trucks, freight trucks and buses — would be zero-emitting.

“In addition to its massive climate benefits, this proposal can make a huge difference for urban air pollution, reducing premature deaths and asthma attacks,” says Environmental Defense Fund’s President Fred Krupp.

It’s not just environmentalists — automakers are on board with lower emissions too

The proposals have found support not only from health and environmental advocates, but from automakers as well. That’s due, in part, to the investments that car manufacturers have already made in zero-emission vehicles.

Over the past eight years, companies have announced investments of more than $120 billion in EV and battery manufacturing. Federal investments, like those included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act, have also increased, and costs are declining rapidly. In just three years, U.S. factories will be capable of producing more than 4.3 million new electric vehicles each year, according to a recent EDF study.

Companies with clean vehicle goals include GM, with a goal of eliminating tailpipe pollution from new passenger vehicles by 2035. Ford expects electric vehicles to represent half of its global sales volume by 2030. Volvo has committed to selling 100% zero-emission vehicles by 2030, and Volkswagen plans to sell 55% zero-emission vehicles by 2030. Truck manufacturers Navistar and Daimler Trucks North America both project 50 to 60% of their sales will be zero-emission vehicles by 2030.

“In coming up with these standards, the EPA looked at the available technology, assessed the feasibility of those technologies, and considered the lead time and cost,” says EDF attorney Peter Zalzal. “A really powerful proof point that they are achievable is that manufacturers are on board.”

“Electric vehicle technology is already very firmly in the marketplace and accelerating,” adds Zalzal. “So it makes sense for the EPA to set tailpipe pollution standards based on that technology.”

The new tailpipe emission standards are expected to be finalized by the end of 2023.

More clean air action

Vehicles aren’t the only source of air pollution getting attention from the Biden administration.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan recently stood in front of smokestacks in Louisiana to announce the agency’s intent to sharply reduce toxic emissions from about 250 of the country’s largest petrochemical facilities, many of which are located along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans — a corridor also known as Cancer Alley.

Near one chemical plant in St. John the Baptist Parish, a primarily Black neighborhood, residents’ cancer risk is 700 times the national average.

“The cancer rates here are unbelievable,” says St. John Parish resident Robert Taylor. “By the time our children are 2 years old, they have been exposed to as much pollution as most people are exposed to over 70 years.”

Since March, the agency has also proposed strengthening protections for mercury and other toxic pollution from coal-fired power plants and finalized its “good neighbor” plan to protect millions of people from poorly controlled smokestack pollution that wafts across state lines, a move that’s expected to prevent nearly 110,000 asthma attacks and improve health for millions of people in downwind states.

“All of these actions are good for the climate, they are good for protecting public health, for growing jobs and protecting consumers,” Zalzal says.

New EDF study shows unequal burden from truck-related pollution near warehouses

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: May 12, 2023

New research from EDF–Making the Invisible Visible: Shining a Light on Warehouse Truck Air Pollution—shows some 15 million people live within a half-mile of a warehouse in 10 states across the United States. The research demonstrates how the burden from truck-related air pollution exposure is not evenly distributed. In all of the states studied, warehouses and the trucks they attract are disproportionately located in Black, Latino, Asian or American Indian communities as well as areas of low wealth.

The boom in just-in-time delivery has resulted in a rise in warehouse-related truck traffic.

While warehouses and the trucks that deliver their goods became more common after the deregulation of the trucking industry, the explosion of just-in-time production and next-day delivery has brought more of these facilities much closer to people’s homes and in more communities than ever before. Understanding who is bearing the brunt of the health burdens associated with warehouse activity can help policymakers, businesses and communities implement smart, targeted policies to reduce emissions and protect health, keep kids in school and improve workforce productivity.

How we did it: Our teams identified warehouse location data and analyzed it through the lens of our Proximity Mapping framework that allowed us to learn demographic information about the people living near them.

Why it matters: More than 1 million children under 5 live within a half-mile of warehouses, making them more vulnerable to adverse health impacts like asthma. Their families are more vulnerable to adverse birth outcomes, dementia, heart disease and stroke, , because of the pollution from the trucks that serve warehouses.

The good news: Low-cost solutions are available today to reduce the pollution burden on these communities. Increased air quality monitoring and zero-emissions goods transport are all tools we can tap into now to reduce harm from truck pollution.

Meanwhile companies are investing in zero-emission delivery vans, yard trucks and even long-haul vehicles. States can help advance this trend through policies such as the Advanced Clean Trucks rule, which eases permitting requirements for charging infrastructure. The EPA’s recently proposed tailpipe regulations are designed to ensure that half of up to half of new urban delivery freight vehicles sold by 2032 will be zero-emitting. Indirect Source Review rules are a tool for state and local leaders to ensure warehouses don’t burden their neighbors.

But we can’t let up. Communities deserve to know what kinds of businesses are operating near their homes and schools, especially if they attract vehicles that are harmful to their health. We must demand greater transparency around warehouse locations and the extent of pollution generated at warehouses. Transparency around health costs and the cost of clean up is essential for fairness to those already impacted by warehouses, while alerting communities facing warehouse expansion to the threats posed by their new neighbors.

Posted in Community Organizer, Concerned Citizen, Government Official/Policymaker, Homepage, Public Health/Environmental Official / Comments are closed

Collaborating on clean air in Latin America and around the world

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: February 10, 2023

Many Latin American and Caribbean countries are implementing clean air solutions, but much more must be done to protect public health and slow climate change. An intensive two-day clean air workshop in Bogotá, Colombia made one thing clear: cooperation and collaboration are critical to scaling clean air solutions in Latin America, the Caribbean and the world.

Professionals from 15 countries attended the workshop, co-hosted by Environmental Defense Fund and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Participants shared best practices for clean air strategies aimed at improving public health and advancing climate action goals.

Key workshop themes:

Sensors, satellites and other advances in air quality technology are improving our ability to understand where pollution is coming from and who is being most harmed by it, which is critical for developing targeted clean air solutions.
Strengthening air quality management is key to supporting LAC climate, health, biodiversity and sustainable development goals.
Government leadership—supported by commitments from industry, academia, and civil society—is necessary for delivering cleaner, healthy air for the LAC region.
In order to secure the funding and public support needed to prioritize clean air solutions, more must be done to make the benefits of reducing air pollution more explicit.

Why it matters: Air pollution is the biggest environmental health threat in Latin America and the Caribbean. The UN has declared access to clean air a human right, but more than 500 million people in the LAC region breathe air that exceeds the World Health Organization’s guidelines for pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, fine particle pollution and ground-level ozone.

What’s next: A paper to be published in February highlights priorities for integrated air quality management in 33 LAC countries.

EDF and UNEP are collaborating to develop clean air solutions in LAC. In April, EDF, UNEP and the Climate & Clean Air Coalition will co-host a workshop in Bogotá on actions to reduce short-lived climate pollutants that harm people’s health and warm our planet. Later this year, EDF will select 10 projects to provide with technical assistance and will facilitate a resource mobilization effort to support their implementation. As the selected projects are developed and implemented, ongoing collaborative activities will be held across the region.

Posted in Climate, Homepage, Mexico, Monitoring, Partners / Comments are closed

Four ways air quality technology can improve public health in Latin America and around the world

By Maia Draper / Published: December 22, 2022

As countries around the world work to develop strategies to improve air quality and achieve climate goals, innovations in monitoring technology and data analysis are opening up new avenues to reduce air pollution and protect our health.

In Latin America, policymakers and other key stakeholders from 15 countries attended a recent workshop co-hosted by Environmental Defense Fund and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Latin America and Caribbean office and discussed how a regional partnership approach to improve air quality, protect global health and advance climate goals can harness the power of new technologies and analytics to leapfrog existing barriers to advancing clean air. By integrating insights from new data-driven tools, policymakers in Latin America and around the world can more effectively use limited resources to shape policies that provide the greatest air quality and health benefits.

Here are four ways technology and data innovation can advance clean air solutions:

Locate pollution sources

Identifying air pollution sources—where it’s coming from, who’s responsible—is a critical component of air quality management. But emissions inventories and traditional models have limited ability to help us pinpoint the likely sources of local pollution when source information is lacking.

One resource to address this uncertainty is Air Tracker, an online tool developed by EDF and partners that uses real-time meteorological models and available air quality data to help users locate likely sources of local pollution.

Air Tracker has the potential to work even in locations without comprehensive air pollution data, although additional data sources—from low-cost sensors, weather data and more—improve the tool’s accuracy and ability to better pinpoint pollution hotspots.

Evaluate health impacts

Satellite data is another game-changing technology that enables us to better understand the magnitude and distribution of air pollution’s health impacts at an unprecedented scale. A recent study by researchers at George Washington University used satellite data and hyperlocal modeling to estimate that nearly 2 million new pediatric asthma cases can be attributed to air pollution in 13,000 cities around the world.

EDF used this analysis to develop maps that visualize the proportion of pediatric asthma cases attributable to air pollution in major U.S. cities.

This study and others like it open up new opportunities to find previously invisible hotspots of air pollution—and to develop policies to protect the health of people who are first and worst affected by air pollution.

Improve compliance with air quality rules

Actionable data on air quality is critical for enforcement of health-protective air quality regulations. In Houston, Texas, more than 600 industrial facilities along the Houston Ship Channel sit in close proximity to residential neighborhoods. While these facilities are subject to federal and state regulations, permit violations and industrial accidents are common, and enforcement from state regulators has historically been lax.

New data insights and technologies can support local governments in proactively identifying the most high-risk facilities and target monitoring and enforcement efforts there.

EDF worked with Houston-area officials to develop a Facility Risk Ranking tool, which compiles multiple data sources to identify and rank the most “high-risk” facilities. Local staff used this tool to prioritize locations for mobile monitoring with a specialized air toxics instrument around those facilities, identifying hotspots of pollutants and sending investigators to inspect likely sources.

Evaluate policy strategies

Finally, new approaches to air quality monitoring and data analysis open exciting possibilities for improving how we evaluate the effectiveness of policy strategies – both before and after implementation.

One approach to evaluate policies is to use “hyperlocal” or neighborhood-level monitoring to track changes in air quality. In the Breathe London Pilot Project, EDF partnered with the Greater London Authority to deploy a network of low-cost monitors alongside mobile monitoring. We used this data to evaluate air quality benefits from London’s Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which established fees for high-polluting vehicles to drive in central London, and developed a guide of best practices for other regions looking to integrate this kind of data analysis into policy evaluations.

Combining tools to strengthen compliance with clean air laws

All of these innovative approaches help us to better understand air quality challenges and develop effective policies to address them. By leveraging new sources of air quality data alongside traditional regulatory approaches, we can enhance policy and enforcement efforts with hard evidence and allocate resources for the highest impact solutions.

A more sophisticated understanding of air can also help us to document improvements to air quality that are associated with climate policies – a priority for many countries as they work toward fulfilling international climate commitments. 

Posted in Climate, Environmental Justice, Mexico, Monitoring, Partners, Science / Comments are closed

Environmental justice groups bring Air Tracker to cities in Alabama and California

By Alex Franco / Published: December 12, 2022

EDF’s Air Tracker pollution monitoring tool is now live in two new cities—Birmingham, AL, and Vallejo, CA—as local groups ramp up efforts to understand how industrial activity impacts community air quality and engage both the public and area regulators.

Who’s using it: GASP, also known as the Greater-Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution, is working to learn more about the impacts of local steel, coke and cement facilities to inform public comments on Clean Air Act Title V permit renewals for these facilities. They also want to use the tool to alert regulators and inspectors of acute pollution events.

In Vallejo, the Citizen Air Monitoring Network (VCAMN) is actively monitoring particulate matter and wants to use Air Tracker to identify potential pollution sources. The local community is surrounded by a Phillips 66 refinery, NuStar Energy tank farm, Selby toxic slag site and the I-80 interstate highway. Multiple heavy and medium industrial sites—including a wastewater treatment plant, a quarry, a concrete recycling plant and a dry dock for ship maintenance and repair—also reside within the city boundaries.

“The Air Tracker tool from EDF is an incredible resource for small, local groups like GASP,” said GASP Executive Director Michael Hansen. “We can use it to gather information and form testable hypotheses about air quality issues in the communities we serve. We’re so grateful for the scientists who created the Air Tracker and look forward to using it in our advocacy work.”

Why it matters: We designed Air Tracker in part to help local communities learn about the air they’re breathing and hope to engage with more groups like these before bringing Air Tracker to new areas.

Go deeper: Learn more about how Air Tracker works, read the blog post about its development or watch a recent Q&A with the team behind it.

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Investigating air pollution inequity at the neighborhood scale

By Maria Harris / Published: November 16, 2022

Air pollution in the United States has declined dramatically over the last several decades, thanks to strong, protective clean air policies. And yet, unjust disparities in pollution exposure remain, with people of color in the United States burdened by higher levels of health-harming pollution than white people, regardless of income.

One cause of these pollution inequities is the historic legacy of disinvestment in communities of color through racist policies like redlining, along with discriminatory siting of highways and polluting industrial facilities. This results in health disparities and higher vulnerability to the health impacts of air pollution for people who live, work and play in close proximity to its sources.

Neighborhood-scale air quality data can provide a clearer picture of air pollution’s impacts

Air quality is often evaluated at the city or county scale, but pollution levels vary at a much finer scale, as do the demographics of neighborhoods shaped by residential segregation.

Variability in pollution and demographics across census tracts and blocks in Minneapolis compared to the full extent of Hennepin County, MN.

New legislation recently introduced to Congress would require the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to advance development of hyperlocal air quality monitoring systems that will provide better, more localized data on pollution hotspots and inequity in pollution exposure. Importantly, the bill calls for monitoring “at a geographic scale that is (i) as small as practicable to identify communities; and (ii) not larger than that of a census tract.”

Why is this issue of geographic scale so important? The scale at which data is collected and analyzed can have major impacts on our understanding of pollution disparities. New research from EDF and partners explored whether it is possible to accurately estimate disparities in exposure to air pollution using larger scale data (for example, county averages) or whether finer scale data (census tract or smaller) is needed.

We found that for two important health-harming pollutants, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), using state and county scale data led to substantial underestimates in US-wide racial/ethnic exposure disparities compared to those based on finer scale data—on average, using country vs. tract data would underestimate national exposure disparities by 20%.

Within individual cities, while census tract scale data was often adequate to characterize disparities, it was sometimes necessary to use even finer data – as small as a city block— to capture the full magnitude of inequity across neighborhoods.

This research adds further evidence to support what environmental justice advocates have long been telling policymakers: in order to identify the people and communities most exposed to harmful pollution, we need data and analysis at the scale of individual neighborhoods.

Data can direct funding to communities with the greatest need

Air pollution can vary across communities–even from block to block–and more data is needed to understand where air pollution comes from, who it’s impacting and who’s responsible for it. This is critical to reduce disparities in pollution exposures throughout the U.S.

EPA’s recent announcement of $53m in new funding for community-level air quality monitoring is a powerful step in support of the Justice40 Initiative, a federal commitment calling for our nation’s most overburdened communities to be prioritized for investment and reductions in pollution. Continued advancements in hyperlocal monitoring and analytical methods will help accurately identify those places, track progress and hold our institutions accountable for eliminating inequities in exposure to health-harming pollution.

Posted in Environmental Justice, Health, Homepage, Monitoring, Public Health/Environmental Official, Science, USA / Comments are closed

EDF joins global organizations calling on UNFCCC to strengthen action on short-lived climate pollutants to achieve climate goals

By Sergio Sanchez / Published: November 4, 2022

This blog is co-authored by Sergio Sanchez, Global Clean Air Policy Director and Julia Gohlke, Lead Senior Scientist, Climate & Health

Environmental Defense Fund supports the World Health Organization (WHO), The World Bank Group, the United Nations Environment Programme and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which have appealed to the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Parties to expand the scope of pollutants under consideration and the methodology for Short-Lived Climate Pollutant (SLCP) assessment, and to strengthen the focus on sector approaches to climate action.”

WHO issued an October 31, 2022 policy brief about SLCPs (black carbon, methane,. tropospheric ozone, and hydrofluorocarbons), along with a group of other major international development organizations. The policy brief urges UNFCCC delegates gathering at COP 27 (November 6-18) to strengthen ambition, improve data reporting and encourage integrated health assessments of air pollution in each country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC). Furthermore, it calls for the full incorporation of SLCPs as an explicit agenda item under the UNFCCC.

Credit: Climate & Clean Air Coalition

Fast action to reduce SLCPs will result in quick benefits for climate change and for human health. SLCPs have historically not been comprehensively included in country emissions inventories and NDC mitigation pledges. Some countries, such as Mexico, have included SLCPs in their NDC, pledging to reduce black carbon by 51% by 2030. Through recognition of the immediate health gains realized with SLCP reductions, climate action ambitions can be strengthened at COP27.

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Historic investments in air quality monitoring can give communities a voice in clean air solutions

By Aileen Nowlan / Published: September 8, 2022

The United Nations General Assembly recently declared that access to clean air and a healthy environment is a universal human right, but far too many people live in communities overburdened by pollution. Together, new legislation and a historic investment in clean air present a tremendous opportunity to reduce pollution and improve public health in the U.S. And for the first time, communities have an opportunity to direct their tax dollars to local projects that can improve air quality.

We have hotspots when it comes to air quality – and they matter

Air pollution can vary across communities–even from block to block–and additional monitoring can shine a light on pollution hotspots. More data is needed to understand where air pollution comes from, who it’s impacting and who’s responsible for it.

Exposure to air pollution is not equally experienced, and the health harms fall most heavily on Black and Latino communities. The discriminatory practice of redlining, for example, played a role in determining land use throughout cities. Neighborhoods falsely labeled “definitely declining” or “hazardous” in the 1930s then experienced decades of depressed property values, which allowed polluters to move in.

Air pollution exposure leads to negative health impacts at every stage of life. New satellite analysis shows places where monitoring isn’t reflecting health burdens, and more data is urgently needed to better understand who is being impacted by air pollution.

New legislation and investments in air quality

The newly passed Inflation Reduction Act includes some powerful provisions that could deliver cleaner air to communities, as well as strengthen the impact of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes an historic $296m investment in air monitoring including:

$117.5m: grants for monitoring focused on community air toxics from industrial facilities beside fenceline communities
$50m: funds to expand multipollutant regulatory monitoring
$3m: grants focused on air quality sensors in low-income and disadvantaged communities
$25m: flexible Clean Air Act grants
$50m: air pollution monitoring in schools
$18m: U.S. Environemental Protection Agency enforcement to crack down on polluters
$32.5m: Council on Environmental Quality data collection

But that’s not all. For the first time, the federal government is welcoming air insights to influence how additional billions in funds are awarded.

$6b in new funding where air monitoring is an eligible activity to ensure funds are prioritized to disadvantaged communities ($3b for Environmental Justice Block Grants and $3b for Neighborhood access and equity grants)
$5.8b for advanced industrials, prioritized in a way that welcomes air and health insights: “projects which would provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people within the area in which the eligible facility is located”
$15b for greenhouse gas reductions, where disadvantaged communities are to be prioritized, creating an opportunity to include health and equity impacts in the forthcoming prioritization
$5b for climate pollution reduction grants, where disadvantaged communities are to be prioritized, creating an opportunity to include health and equity impacts in the forthcoming prioritization
$1.15b in additional funding for non-attainment areas ($400m for clean heavy-duty vehicles and $750m for ports)

There were also three bills recently introduced that, if passed, would support communities and EPA to better understand the air we breathe:

The “Technology Assessment for Air Quality Management Act,” introduced by Senator Markey and Representative McEachin, would require EPA to better enable the development and understanding of air pollution, health and equity insights at the community level.
The “Environmental Justice Air Quality Monitoring Act of 2021,” introduced by Senator Markey and Representative Castor, would direct $100m a year to hyperlocal air quality monitoring. It would enable monitoring of criteria air pollutants, hazardous air pollutants and greenhouses gases at a neighborhood scale in order to identify persistent elevated levels of air pollutants in environmental justice communities.
The “Public Health Air Quality Act of 2022,” reintroduced by Representative Blunt Rochester and Senator Duckworth, would strengthen air quality monitoring in communities near industrial sources of pollution, require a rapid expansion of the NAAQS or national ambient air monitoring network and deploy at least 1,000 new air quality sensors in communities.

Community-centered solutions

There are billions of dollars available, and it’s critical that state and local leaders design good projects that provide communities with data to better understand what’s in their air and advocate for a healthier environment. Solutions to environmental problems must center the communities that are most gravely damaged by pollution. That means a multi-stakeholder, solutions-oriented public engagement process.

This unprecedented investment in clean air can give communities a voice in their own local air quality solutions.

Posted in Community Organizer, Concerned Citizen, Environmental Justice, Government Official/Policymaker, Health, Homepage, Monitoring, Science, USA / Comments are closed