PennEnvironment Testimony for EPA Soot Rule Public Comment Period

Flora Cardoni, 

PennEnvironment Field Director

February 22, 2023

Public Testimony for EPA-HQ-OAR-2015-0072 

Hello. My name is Flora Cardoni. I am the Field Director with PennEnvironment which is a statewide, citizen-based, environmental advocacy nonprofit here in Pennsylvania. And I’m personally based in Philadelphia. Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today, both for myself and on behalf of thousands of PennEnvironment’s citizen members all across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who are clamoring for real action to clean up our air, tackle the climate crisis, and protect our health. In order to do that, it is essential that we rein in harmful soot pollution.

Each year, millions of Pennsylvanians are exposed to elevated levels of soot pollution. And it’s increasingly clear that no level of fine particulate matter is safe to breathe. This pollution poses a huge threat to our health and is linked to asthma attacks, heart attacks, stroke, heart disease, COPD, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, low birth weight, greater risk of preterm birth, and higher rates of infant mortality. We see this first hand here in the Commonwealth where 1 million adults and 300,000 children suffer from asthma across the state and where 21% of children in Philadelphia have asthma, which is more than double the national average. Soot pollution also causes 195 premature deaths per 100,000 residents in Pennsylvania, the highest rate in the county. Pennsylvanians and all Americans need protection from this harmful soot pollution

We can’t choose whether or not to breathe the air, but we can choose to make the air cleaner. Placing new, stricter limits on soot pollution is one of the best ways that the Biden administration and EPA can help improve Pennsylvanians’ health and save lives. 

By tightening soot protections, other dangerous pollution from these sources will also be reduced. Tackling soot pollution would therefore also help us tackle the climate crisis. That’s because burning fossil fuels is both the main source of soot pollution and also the main driver of climate change. At a time when the impacts of the climate crisis are all around us, we should seize every opportunity to lower fossil fuel pollution.

It is clear that strengthening soot pollution standards is a win-win, that will clean up our air, lower climate pollution, and protect public health. So we are grateful that EPA is proposing stronger air quality standards for particulate matter. However, the current proposal does not go far enough to protect public health and safety.

As such, we encourage EPA to move swiftly to adopt the strictest possible standard for soot pollution, that is no higher than 8 mcg/m3 annually and 25 mcg/m3 daily. This stronger standard could save an estimated 19,600 additional lives per year and anything less would mean a missed opportunity to secure cleaner air for millions of Americans.

We need the strongest possible soot protections to really protect our health, tackle climate change, and save lives. And I am confident EPA will rise to the occasion to do so. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.