Washington, D.C. — In response to the Trump EPA’s proposal to not strengthen the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter (PM NAAQS), the League of Conservation Voters released the following statement from Legislative Director Matthew H. Davis:

“The last thing we should be doing right now is making it harder to breathe. This would have been a bad policy decision even before we were facing a pandemic that early research indicates is exacerbated by exactly this kind of air pollution – now it is simply unthinkable.

“This proposal will allow unsafe levels of the soot pollution that some research already shows could increase the risk of dying from COVID-19 or suffering from asthma in areas across the country. To make matters tragically worse, these high pollution areas are far more likely to be in communities of color or low wealth communities. This refusal to make the air cleaner comes on the heels of announcements just last week that the Trump administration’s EPA rolled back standards for air pollution at the request of waste coal-fired power plants, and, the week before that, rolled back clean air standards for cars. The Trump administration’s disregard for science and scientists’ advice in the middle of a public health crisis is shameful — this favor for polluting industries is a great risk to public health.”

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