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US Air Quality Slipping After Years of Improvement

Associated Press

   After decades of improvement, America's air may not be getting any
   cleaner.

   Over the last two years the nation had more polluted air days than just
   a few years earlier, federal data shows. While it remains unclear
   whether this is the beginning of a trend, health experts say it's
   troubling to see air quality progress stagnate.

   There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year
   and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016,
   the four years when America had its fewest number of those days since
   at least 1980.

   President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed just the opposite, saying
   earlier this month in Ireland: "We have the cleanest air in the world,
   in the United States, and it's gotten better since I'm president."

   That's not quite the case. There were noticeably more polluted air days
   each year in the president's first two years in office than any of the
   four years before, according to new Environmental Protection Agency
   data analyzed by The Associated Press.

   The Trump administration is expected to replace an Obama-era rule
   designed to limit emissions from electric power plants on Wednesday.
   Called the Clean Power Plan, it would have gradually phased out
   coal-burning power plants that emit both air pollutants and
   heat-trapping gases responsible for climate change.

   Many influences

   Air quality is affected by a complex mix of factors, both natural and
   man-made. Federal regulations that limit the emissions of certain
   chemicals and soot from factories, cars and trucks have helped
   dramatically improve air quality over recent decades. In any given
   year, however, air quality can be affected by natural variations. That
   may be what's behind the stalled progress, scientists say.

   "What you're seeing is a flattening off of progress as opposed to a
   major change in the wrong direction," said former deputy EPA
   administrator Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and
   Energy Solutions.

   But Trump is moving to loosen regulations on coal-fired power plants
   and cars that scientists credit for cleaner air, and he appears to be
   less stringent about enforcing current rules, according to data
   obtained by environmental advocates through the Freedom of Information
   Act.

   Scientists say that it is too early to see the effects of changes in
   environmental policy of the Trump administration, which took office in
   January 2017.

   But they say looser restrictions and lax enforcement would almost
   certainly reverse the gains that have been made in recent decades,
   potentially turning what has so far been a modest, two-year backslide
   into a dangerous trend.

   "Today it feels like the future of our kids and our country is at
   stake," said former Obama EPA chief Gina McCarthy, now director of the
   Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at the Harvard
   School of Public Health. "We do not have the cleanest air and we have
   not crossed the finish line when it comes to pollution."

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