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EPA edict targets trucks, not pollution By Melanie Scarborough Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner apes her boss to perfection, snookering the public with bogus excuses to expand the federal government. Browner's most recent scam is a crackdown on the trucking industry via an EPA requirement that, by 2010, diesel fuel must contain 97 percent less sulfur than at present. This not only will raise the price of fuel, but also will require the reconfiguration of diesel-truck engines -costs that inevitably will be passed along to the consumer in higher-priced goods and services. It also is likely to create shortages of gasoline and other fuels as small refineries, unable to afford the changes, are forced out of business. The alleged Justification for such ' punitive measures? "Soot and smog pollution are scientifically associated with 15.000 deaths annually and a million cases of respiratory problems each year." Browner claims. They are also responsible for some 400,000 cases of asthma attacks every year, including thousands of aggravated cases of asthma, especially in children." This fabrication was confirmed by the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators (STAPPA) and the Association of Local Air Pollution Control Officials (ALAPCO), who - contrary to what their titles imply - are mere shills for the ERA. The groups share Suite 307 of an office building two blocks from the nation's Capitol and conduct research paid for, in large part, by grant money from the ERA. Enhancing Browner's tale, STAPPA and ALAPCO claimed truck exhaust contributes to 125,000 cancer deaths over the course of a 70-year lifetime - a number that is both infinitesimal and meaningless because, as the groups concede, there is no method for measuring diesel particulate in the atmosphere. To reach that number, they employed California's method of estimating by measuring atmospheric, carbon, then "assumed that the levels of elemental carbon in metropolitan areas in the United States are one-half of the Los Angeles-area average." So STAPPA and ALAPCO's analysis, on which the ERA rests its case, are speculations based on estimates based on guesswork based on assumptions. And all based on a faulty premise. California officials specifically warned in their report, "The data obtained from (our) study cannot be used to determine comparable risk with other areas of the country ... Therefore, any direct comparison would not be a proper use of the information and would produce inaccurate findings." Evidently it did. The Centers for Disease Control" and Prevention says that "no evidence exists" to blame lung cancer on air pollution. Doctors also deny that air pollution is responsible for the increased incidence of asthma. "The environmental triggers that are most likely to cause asthma attacks to children," says Dr. A.M. Aminlan, a specialist in asthma, allergies, and immunology, "have been increasingly identified as dustmites, cockroaches, mold and animal dander." That explains why asthma rates are rising most rapidly among inner-city children. It is also possible that reports of asthma are rising faster than the condition itself. Consider this: The drug company AstraZeneca, which manufactures asthma medications, gives money to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immu-nology to screen children. When youngsters agree with statements such as "Colds make me cough or wheeze," their answers are tallied as Indication of asthma, though their lung function is perfectly normal. But even worse than basing policy on spurious health crises is Browner's propensity for Impeding progress. New diesel trucks emit 88 percent less pollution than those built 15 years ago. Models coming out after 2001 will be even cleaner. Requiring expensive reconfiguration of engines will raise the price of trucks and ensure only that fleet-owners keep older, dirtier trucks on the road longer. Moreover, refiners already have pledged to spend $5 billion to $6 billion to reduce the sulfur content of fuel by 90 percent. Browner's insistence on an addi-tional 7 percent will cost two to three tunes more than that for no perceptible gain. When asked why such small Improvements were worth the tremendous cost. Browner sputtered lamely, "If you breathe, they are significant" But, of course, they aren't. What is significant to Browner is pleasing Al Gore, who hand-picked her for the ERA Job, and whose stated mission is "completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-year-period." That will be easier to accomplish if carbon-based fuel is in short supply. If Browner and Gore's true target were air pollution, then the new regulations would apply not only to trucks, but also to trains and construction and agricultural equipment. Those sources generate twice as much air pollution as heavy-duty diesel trucks, which is still nothing compared to the fog generated by Browner's EPA. Scarborough is a senior fellow at the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution based in Arlington, Va.
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