Texas Clean Air Matters

Selected tag(s): Air Pollution

Strong Fuel Efficiency and Clean Air Standards Welcome in Texas

By / Bio / Published: July 28, 2015
Strong fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards will cut both costs and pollution.

Strong fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards will save money and cut pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) are proposing new fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards for heavy-duty vehicles, and that should be welcome news for all of Texas.

Applying to everything from delivery vans to waste and recycling trucks to utility trucks and all the way up to tractor-trailers, these rules could drive efficiency improvements that save money for both businesses and consumers, all while cutting harmful air pollution. According to EPA and NHTSA estimates, the rules would cut climate emissions by one billion metric tons and save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program. And a study by Environmental Defense Fund and CERES found strong fuel-efficiency standards for trucks could lower total per-mile cost of truck ownership by 21 cents-per-mile by 2025. Read More »

Posted in Air Pollution, Climate Change, Energy Efficiency, Environmental Protection Agency, Uncategorized / Also tagged , , , | Comments are closed

Study Shows How Power Plant Rules Can Save Lives, Improve Public Health in Texas

By / Bio / Published: July 15, 2015
A recent study suggests that a carbon emissions reduction policy for power plants could prevent thousands of premature deaths

A carbon emissions reduction policy for power plants could prevent thousands of premature deaths

When it comes to reducing carbon pollution from power plants, details in policy choices matter, especially for the state of Texas.

The final proposal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, which would put the first ever national limits on carbon pollution from power plants in the U.S., is expected later this summer. It comes on the heels of the publication of an important study in Nature Climate Change, which examined three different power plant carbon policy options and then investigated how each would affect clean air and public health.

The study is titled Health Co-benefits of Carbon Standards for Existing Power Plants, and was conducted by scientists Dr. Buonocore and Dr. Charles Driscoll as well as their colleagues from Harvard, Syracuse, and Boston Universities. Read More »

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What Does the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard Ruling Mean for Texas?

By / Bio / Published: July 6, 2015
Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The following introduction from Senior Health Scientist Elena Craft deals specifically with the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent Mercury and Air Toxics Standard Ruling on Texas. Below, an examination of the broader implications of the ruling follows.

“While this ruling does not mean current clean air protections will be revoked in Texas (or any other state), it does mean we will see another series of legal steps in the fight for clean air.

As one of the biggest contributors of emissions of mercury in the nation with over 40 coal-fired power plants, Texas facilities are now required to install pollution reducing controls to limit the amount of mercury, arsenic, and acid gases coming from electric generating units. But in truth, most of the plants in Texas and across the country have already installed or have plans to install pollution controls. Read More »

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Sharing: How Lessons Learned in Kindergarten Apply to Freight Transportation

By / Bio / Published: June 17, 2015
Sharing freight information can help build relationships with others.

Sharing freight information can help build relationships with others.

Leaders in the freight transportation industry may not realize it, but they probably learned an invaluable lesson for success when they were in kindergarten: learning to share is important.

After all, the interconnected world we live in today requires businesses to be accountable not only to shareholders and customers, but to other partners in the supply chain and to the communities living nearby. Whether disclosing the impacts to human health and the environment associated with goods movement, or implementing solutions to mitigate those impacts, sharing information can help build relationships with others, benefiting the overall supply chain. Read More »

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Environmental Justice Leaders Call for Zero-Emission Strategies at Ports

By / Bio / Published: June 2, 2015
Image Credit: Reinhard Link

There has been clean air progress at ports, but more leaders are calling for zero-emission strategies

When surveying the clean air progress in freight hubs like ports, community leaders and environmental advocates can see hard work has paid off.

But they also see we must do more as a nation to fully protect the health and environment of communities near goods movement corridors.

And when faced with the expected 45 percent growth in freight transportation from 2012 to 2040 – as well as the sound science linking diesel exhaust to damaging health effects like asthma – many leaders are calling for the next generation milestone for clean air efforts: zero-emission strategies. Read More »

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TCEQ-Sponsored Workshop Undermines Public Health Benefits of Ozone Standard

By / Bio / Published: June 1, 2015

ozone workshop smokestack 6.1.15Several weeks ago, I attended an ozone workshop sponsored by the toxicology division at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and facilitated by Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA). Ozone, a component of smog, is a harmful air pollutant that is associated with adverse health effects including asthma attacks, decreased lung function, and premature death.

EPA has proposed new National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) within the range of 65-70 parts per billion (ppb), and, according to TCEQ, this workshop was “designed to provide an independent evaluation and synthesis of key considerations for approaching the difficult ozone NAAQS decision.”

Given the importance of this pollutant to public health, it is unfortunate a state environmental agency – that has plenty of other higher priority issues – chose to spend taxpayer money on a workshop designed to mislead the public and present a one-sided perspective on the issue.

What were the problems with TCEQ’s workshop? Read More »

Posted in Air Pollution, Environmental Protection Agency, Ozone, TCEQ, Uncategorized / Also tagged , , | Comments are closed