Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Search / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

Cleaning the Air (Response to Cincy Editorial)

By Larry Brown

   I was very disappointed to see your editorial of April 19^th  simply accept the EPA’s methods for cleaner air.  The commonsense, intelligent people of Greater Cincinnati can see bias, bullying, inaccuracies and deceit when examining the EPA mandates, so why can’t you?  In the last week, I have seen several articles on clean air that take the position only the EPA is correct. Your “let’s ‘develop a sensible pollution-control strategy that makes this a healthier place to live’” sounds so politically correct, but is it when you examine the facts?

   The EPA mandated MTBE as a gasoline additive without real world science. We received contaminated drinking water with a cancer causing agent from MTBE.  Real world science is now showing Ethanol, the new EPA mantra, is actually harmful to the air quality and may cost more in energy making it than is derived from it. In fact, Ethanol may be increasing certain ozone chemicals in the air. A 1996 Center for Disease Control concluded “no evidence exists that supports the role of outdoor pollution levels as the primary factor driving the changes in the epidemiological patterns of asthma morbidity”.

   The Clinton and Carol Browner EPA mandated numerous useless, unscientific regulations that we have today. Plus, they mandated a cookie cutter approach that does not take into account weather patterns, geography or other outside influences in addressing the problem.  The Browner EPA knew in the mid 90’s auto testing was ineffective ( 99% passing rate) but it was a cash cow for politically connected contractors, so they changed the rules to maintain it. Do you or the readers know how many dirty air days it takes to make us in noncompliance? Is it 3, 5 or 10 per year or over 3 years? Where is the medical evidence, not theory, that those 3 days really are that unhealthy for 95% of the population?

    Emission credit trading is one such EPA and environmentalist solution.  How does trading emission credits from one polluter who is below his emission allowance to another polluter who is above his allowance clean the air?

    The new air standards have little scientific basis, just the rationale that lower parts per million must be better than higher. I have quoted this often from former Virginia Secretary of the Environment, “an ozone concentration of .08 parts per million is only slightly higher than the level of ozone produced by natural vegetation.  A level of .072 ppm has been recorded in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park, about as remote a place as one can find in North America.” (Cleaning the Air, Becky N Dunlop pg141)  She made this comment during a 90’s hearing reviewing the just released air quality standards that we now fail.  She also mentioned a National Academy of Sciences 1991 study equally ignored by the Browner EPA that found in Atlanta and other parts of the Southeast, “vegetation produced more such chemicals (ozone) than cars or factories”.

   So, science matters little to the lawyers running the EPA. Power, controlling economic development and job security is centermost a deciding policy factor.  Today’s technology can target “gross emitters” of pollution, but the EPA is removing no gross emitters.

   Your editor staff’s willingness to give the EPA a pass is our problem. Who speaks for the consumer who needlessly pays the higher prices for gasoline, products, services, electricity, or who loses their job to over zealous EPA regulations that send companies packing?  There are problems out there, but cars are no longer one of them. I am for clean air based on real science, sound economics, and demonstrable, proven results, and I would hope you are too.

Larry Brown

Co Founder VETO the VET

Florence Ky

Phone 859 283-1073

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest / Search / White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN