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The community was disproportionately vulnerable when the pandemic hit, both because of the number of people who had preexisting health conditions and the number who worked front-line jobs that put their lives at risk, he said. If the EPA isn’t “moving forward to make sure our policies are strong, to save lives, then we’re definitely moving back[ward].”
It’s too early for conclusive evidence on the coronavirus and particulate matter, said Brauer, the University of British Columbia professor. Even the official death count from COVID-19 remains preliminary, he said. There is, however, plenty of evidence from other respiratory illnesses showing that “if you’re exposed to an infection and at the same time exposed to pollution, that infection is more likely to become severe.”
There is also growing consensus that factors like air pollution contribute to health disparities in poor and minority communities, and those who are disproportionately affected are more vulnerable to COVID-19, he said.
Wheeler doesn’t need definitive proof, said Bernard Goldstein, a professor emeritus of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh. The law allows Wheeler to consider a “margin of safety” that acknowledges ongoing research, Goldstein said. “You have two different things that violently attack the same organs” in the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, he added. From a margin of safety perspective, it’s enough to say “I’ve got data showing the dam is about to break.”
Far from acknowledging the pandemic as an added threat, Wheeler has used it to loosen reporting requirements for coal plants and other polluters. The temporary policy, announced on March 26, said the EPA would not penalize businesses that failed to monitor or report pollution, as long as they were “making good faith efforts to comply with their obligations during this difficult time.”
Nine state attorneys general sued the EPA in response. They dropped the lawsuit after the EPA ended the practice Aug. 31.
The policy has already had deadly consequences, said Claudia Persico, an assistant professor with American University’s Department of Public Administration and Policy in Washington, D.C. An analysis by Persico and Kathryn Johnson, a doctoral student, found that the EPA’s coronavirus policy led to a 14% increase in particulate matter emissions in roughly 700 counties with major polluters, and that change is “associated with” more than 7,300 additional deaths from COVID-19 from March 26 to July 11. The paper is undergoing peer review. Two other experts who read the study told the news publication Grist that the paper’s methodology is sound.
Persico and Johnson’s research controlled for the effects of pandemic shutdowns that temporarily drove down emissions in many counties. Their estimate of 7,300 deaths only accounts for the counties where the first COVID-19 deaths occurred after March 26, leaving out major metropolitan areas like New York City and Chicago, Persico said.
“Because we allowed this rollback, more people died,” she said. “And that’s a pretty serious thing.”
The EPA says the practice did not permit any additional release of pollutants. “There is no support in the [Persico and Johnson] paper for their allegation that ‘policy-induced increases in pollution’ occurred,” the agency said in a statement.
The spokesperson pointed to a peer-reviewed study led by the University of Minnesota that “reported declines in air pollution during the COVID-19 pandemic.” But that paper only captured what happened in the initial shutdowns, from March 13 through April 21, when many nonessential businesses closed and commuter traffic plummeted; particulate pollution dropped 11% in 63 counties that adopted early business shutdowns.
There was also a marginal increase in particulate matter in 59 other counties without early shutdowns, but the findings were not conclusive. The study didn’t include data from after April, when pollution may have rebounded as businesses reopened, said one of its authors, Jesse Berman, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. The study doesn’t prove or disprove whether the EPA’s lack of enforcement increased pollution. “It just wasn’t designed to do that,” Berman said.
Cementing a “Full-Frontal Assault” on Science
The particulate pollution decision shows how the Trump administration has rewritten the rules on how independent science affects regulation, Goldman said.
The latest particulate pollution review kicked off during President Barack Obama’s second term. In 2018, EPA staff scientists published an exhaustive, 1,881-page summary of the science. The report found strong evidence that particulate matter can kill people through its effects on the cardiovascular system. Even short-term exposure may be deadly, it said. Additional evidence showed how it can damage children’s lungs and exacerbate asthma.
Under normal circumstances, that report would have gone to a review panel of more than 20 outside scientists, including Frey. The panel included epidemiologists, physicians, biostatisticians and other experts who specialize in particulate pollution. The members work with the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or CASAC, a seven-member team that helps Wheeler determine the final standard.
But Wheeler dismissed the review panel a few days before it could weigh in on the EPA report. He and his predecessor, Scott Pruitt, also replaced most of the independent scientists on CASAC. It once had a plurality of doctors, biostatisticians and epidemiologists, and it is now dominated by state regulators from Republican states and led by a consultant with close ties to industry. None of them are experts in epidemiology — the study of how diseases affect populations, a linchpin of particulate matter research.
“All of the current members hold Ph.D.s in fields that include health sciences, toxicology, ecology, chemical engineering and risk analysis,” and the majority of CASAC members recommended maintaining the current standard, the EPA spokesperson said. Wheeler has considered the committee’s advice “but is also reviewing additional input provided during the public comment period,” the statement added.
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