U.S. Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) speaks during a press conference held to announce the EPA’s new standard to reduce soot pollution Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. In background from left, Dr. Vishisht Mehta and state Sen. Roberta Lange (D-NV).
Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024 | 6:20 p.m.
An incremental change in EPA soot regulations falls short of experts’ advice, but U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, state Sen. Roberta Lange and the Nevada Conservation League said the new regulations are still a victory.
The EPA this month lowered its standard for what’s considered a harmful amount of airborne soot pollution from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to nine in an effort to prevent heart and lung diseases, cancers and childhood illnesses. Low-income communities and communities of color are most impacted by this kind of pollution nationwide according to the agency.
During a press conference Tuesday in Las Vegas, Titus celebrated the new standard.
“We might ask, ‘Why not zero?’” Titus said. “Sometimes these things need to be done in a step-by-step fashion in order to make that acceptable and enforceable.”
Titus was one of 88 U.S. lawmakers who signed a March 2023 letter calling for EPA Administrator Michael Regan and President Joe Biden to lower the acceptable amount of fine particulate matter pollution from an average of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to eight.
The letter was a response to a proposed update to the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. The 8 microgram recommendation came from the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, made up of scientists and engineers who give the EPA technical advice.
“Adopting the most stringent annual standard proposed by EPA — 9 [micrograms per cubic meter] — saves 4,200 lives, but adopting the standard recommended by CASAC — saves more than twice that number in the year 2032,” the letter read.
Titus thanked the Biden Administration.
“This is a reflection of their approach … being an all-government solution going across local, state, and national entities and affecting everybody, not just a few at the top,” Titus said.
Lange, who represents Nevada’s 7th district, said Southern Nevada residents aren’t strangers to the health impacts of particulate pollution, and the new standards will help protect residents.
“We know about the high health care costs caused by bad air quality,” Lange said. “We see it in our bills and in our insurance premiums. We know how particulate affects our kids as we hand them inhalers and keep them inside on bad air days.”
Vishisht Mehta, a pulmonologist at Comprehensive Cancer Centers and member of the American Lung Association, said particle pollution from factories, power plants, cars, residential chimneys and wildfires all contribute to spikes that cause asthma attacks, heart attacks, infant mortality and “a whole other host of adverse health conditions.”
“According to the estimates, the new standard will save 4,500 lives, avoid 5,700 cases of asthma onset, and many thousands more will avoid lost work days [nationwide],” Mehta said.
Mehta said the association’s 2023 air quality report on Nevada gave Clark County an “F” for its ozone and particle pollution.
“[The American Lung Association] has found that Las Vegas has experienced some of the worst levels ever of spikes in air pollution,” Mehta said. “93 percent of Nevada residents in fact live in a county with at least one failing air quality grade.”
The Clark County Department of Sustainability disagreed with the failing grade last year. Spokesman Kevin MacDonald said occasional spikes in pollution caused by wildfires and extreme heat skew the results.
