President Trump’s plan to replace the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan with a more limited option would lead to more heart attacks, hospital admissions, and premature deaths from fine particle air pollution in certain parts of the U.S., according to scientists at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Syracuse University.
Under a plan being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, new air pollution hotspots would emerge in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Texas and other states, the researchers said. That’s on top of 3,500 premature deaths and $33 billion in annual health costs that a prior study had estimated would result from repealing the Clean Power Plan.
The new EPA plan would require only power plant upgrades inside facilities, such as investing in new technology, but would not require a shift from coal to cleaner power sources, as is required by the Clean Power Plan.
“The current EPA has the cost-benefit science wrong,” said Jonathan Buonocore, program leader for climate, energy, and health at Harvard Chan School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, in an October 11, 2017 Phys.Org article. “There is no credible evidence that there is a safe level of fine particulate pollution that does not harm health.”
Read the Phys.Org article: Clean power replacement worse than nothing, costs more than 3,500 lives and $33b yearly
Read a MedPage Today article: Health Groups Slam EPA Plan to Repeal Power Plant Emissions Rule