The Environmental Protection Agency under President Trump has stopped assigning dollar values to certain public-health benefits—such as fewer premature deaths and illnesses—from changes in fine particle (PM2.5) and ozone pollution, citing uncertainty in the economic estimates. Public-health and legal experts say the shift could make it easier for the agency to justify rolling back air pollution protections.
For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has assigned a dollar value to the lives saved and the health problems avoided through many environmental regulations.
That approach has changed. In a new rule that weakened air pollution requirements for power plant turbines that burn fossil fuels, the agency wrote in its regulatory impact analysis that it will not, for now, consider the dollar value of health benefits tied to changes in fine particle pollution (PM2.5) and ozone because it says the economic estimates are too uncertain.
EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the agency is still considering the health impacts of PM2.5 and ozone, but will not monetize those impacts “at this time” as it reconsiders how it calculates the figures.
Health researchers say the decision risks understating the consequences of regulatory rollbacks. Mary Rice, a pulmonologist and air pollution researcher at Harvard University and director of the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment, said she is concerned about what the change could mean for people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, children whose lungs are still developing, and older adults who are especially vulnerable to air pollution’s effects on the heart, lungs and brain.
Fine particles, often called soot, can come from many sources, including power plants that burn coal and natural gas. Long-term exposure to fine particle pollution has been linked in scientific research to increased risks of asthma, heart attacks, dementia and premature death. In past EPA estimates cited by public media outlets, reductions in fine particle pollution have been credited with saving more than 230,000 lives and delivering billions of dollars in benefits each year.
Critics also argue that dropping monetized health benefits while continuing to tally industry compliance costs can shift the way rollbacks appear on paper. Richard Revesz, an environmental law professor at New York University, said the costs of complying with air rules are still quantified in the new rule, but that removing monetized health benefits can make it easier to discount public-health harms. “It looks good only because you ignore the main consequence of the rollback, which is the additional negative impact on public health,” he said.
The debate plays out against a broader federal tradition of cost-benefit review for major regulations that dates back decades, including a Reagan-era executive order directing agencies to prepare regulatory impact analyses for major rules.
Public-health experts point to a long body of research showing measurable gains from cleaner air, including landmark U.S. epidemiological studies that helped establish links between fine particulate pollution and premature mortality. They warn that decisions about how benefits are counted in rulemaking can shape the strength of future air pollution protections and affect the health risks faced by communities exposed to PM2.5 and ozone pollution.
