Trouble in the Air

Media Contacts
Timothy Schaefer

Twin Cities residents’ health at risk with 37 dirty air days in 2016

Environment Minnesota Research and Policy Center

For Immediate Release: June 27, 2018

Contact: Tim Schaefer, [email protected]

Minneapolis, MN – As the Trump administration considers weakening federal air quality and global warming emissions standards, air pollution remains a threat to public health. According to a new report by Environment Minnesota Research & Policy Center over 3.5 million people in the Twin Cities metro area experienced 37 days of degraded air quality in 2016, increasing the risk of premature death, asthma attacks and other adverse health impacts.

“All Minnesotans should be able to breathe clean air. Even one day with polluted air is too many,” said Tim Schaefer, director of Environment Minnesota Research & Policy Center. “To make dirty air days a thing of the past, we need to strengthen existing air quality protections and reduce global warming pollution.”

For the report, Trouble in the Air: Millions of Americans Breathe Polluted Air, Environment Minnesota Research & Policy Center, and the Frontier Group reviewed Environmental Protection Agency records of air pollution levels across the country, focusing on smog and particulate pollution – harmful pollutants that come from burning fossil fuels such as coal, diesel, gasoline and natural gas.

“There’s no safe level of exposure to smog and particulate pollution,” said Elizabeth Ridlington, Policy Analyst with Frontier Group and co-author of the report. “Even low levels of smog and particulate pollution are bad for health and can increase deaths.”

These troubling findings come at a time when the Trump administration prepares to weaken the federal clean car standards, a critical program to cut global warming emissions and increase fuel efficiency. And just this week, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the agency will review the federal ozone standard — a standard he sued to stop when he was Oklahoma’s attorney general.

The report’s authors called on the federal government to strengthen, not weaken, the clean car standards and continue to allow states to adopt stronger vehicle pollution standards. The authors also called on EPA to strengthen ozone and particulate pollution standards.

“To protect our health, we must keep cutting smog, particulate pollution and global warming emissions,” said Schaefer. “We must accelerate our progress, not hit the brakes on effective programs like the federal clean car standards.”

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Environment Minnesota Research & Policy Center is dedicated to protecting our air, water and open spaces. We investigate problems, craft solutions, educate the public and decision-makers, and help the public make their voices heard in local, state and national debates over the quality of our environment and our lives. www.environmentminnesotacenter.org.

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