Imagine Our Surprise: PM Standard Weakened By White House

Confirming what a lot of observers had already suspected, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday that the White House submitted a new federal air standard for Particulate Matter air pollution this year that was higher than EPA originally proposed.

It's not the first time the Obama Administration has been accused of sacrificing science-based air quality standards for politics. Last year, the White House mugged EPA's Lisa Jackson with a last-minute decision to forgo tightening the Bush-era ozone/smog standard that she had already termed "legally indefensible."

Particulate Matter, or is the widespread and increasingly insidious pollutant that can be breathed-in and affect not only your respiratory system, but pass through the lung lining into the blood stream to also impact brain and heart function.

Based on a recommendation from its own panel of scientists, the Agency proposed a tightening of the PM standard from 15 to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. That recommendation then went to the Office of Management and Budget, which in the last 20 years has grown to have veto power over all EPA regulations. OMB directed the EPA to set the limit slightly higher, between 12 and 13 mg/m3. That doesn't sound like much of a change, but it could be the difference between areas like DFW getting a pass or having to adopt a plan to better control PM pollution.

Critics see the move as one more example of science taking a back seat to politics in the Obama White House when push comes to shove.

Kilnheads across the country just saw the same thing happen just last month with the EPA's proposed rollback of new cement plant emission rules that were 20 years in the making and on the verge of being implemented. However, that move is a stumper compared to the yanks that restrained the EPA on new ozone and PM rules – both national standards with widespread implications. Why is the EPA going out of its way at the last minute to bow to cement industry pressure when there don't appear to be nationwide political implications or impacts to these rules? We hope the Post can snoop around and get to the bottom of this reversal the same way it's reported on the retreats in ozone and PM.