Air Pollution From Industrial Facilities Is Far Worse Than Estimated. Trump Halted Efforts to Fix It.

[muriel_volestrangler]

And for decades, the Environmental Protection Agency tracked those emissions not by monitoring the air but by relying on a kind of honor system. Companies were allowed to estimate their chemical pollution using methods that even the EPA conceded were often unreliable.

In 2023, the EPA received irrefutable proof that these estimates were highly flawed. The agency had required 20 industrial facilities to temporarily install air monitors around their perimeters — known as fence-line monitoring — to see how bad the pollution actually was.
...
Despite industry opposition, the EPA took action last year. More than 130 industrial facilities would have to install permanent air monitors, starting as soon as this year. Communities surrounding some of the country’s most notorious polluters would finally get a glimpse of what they were breathing. The monitors would act as a warning system: If pollution levels were to exceed new standards set by the EPA, the facility would have to find the source of the leaks and fix them. In fact, among the 20 plants that were forced to conduct temporary monitoring, half would have violated these standards, ProPublica found.

Then, shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, his administration announced it was putting a halt to the effort. Not only was Trump’s EPA going to reconsider the new requirements — the first step in rolling them back — but companies in the meantime could apply for two-year exemptions allowing them to evade the rules altogether.

https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-air-pollution-pittsburgh-clairton-coke-works

Trump is pro-pollution.

[lark]

1. Trump is pro grift for himself and pro death for regular Americans - change explained!