Getting It Right at the EPA

Wonderful things do happen. Stephen Johnson, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, has proposed a public health protecting air quality standard for lead -- one that is actually more stringent and health-oriented than was expected, and  that is even better than the recommendation of EPA's Science Advisory Board. The new standards tighten the allowable lead level by a factor of 10 down to 0.15 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air.

"America's air is cleaner than a generation ago," said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. "With these stronger standards a new generation of Americans are being protected from harmful lead emissions."

The existing air standard for lead, 1.5 micrograms, was set 30 years ago and, since that time, science has demonstrated that lead is much more hazardous to health than was previously understood.

Johnson was under intense pressure from business to set a much weaker standard; he was almost certainly under intense pressure from the White House to respond to business. He deserves a heartfelt vote of thanks from every American.

Comments

[SpaceCommand]

Very good, but as Robert Kennedy Jr. has written in Rolling Stone Magazine about mercury in the vaccines and autism, nothing is being done, in fact the mercury increased. Lame duck announcers even promote mercury as "good for you," while it seeks and destroys brain cells. Heavy metal chelation can save some, but there is no public consensus on this trillion dollar pharmaceutical tyranny.

Those who have political power can be seen as heartless, or even spineless in the face of lobbying while and their electorate appears to be deliberately uninformed with few effective exceptions as the above air quality concept.