JLF’s good friend and affiliate Joel Schwartz has just penned an excellent article published online at “TechCentralStation.com” regarding the newly proposed EPA standards for fine particles known as PM2.5. Joel points out that while the Bush endorsed change represents a 45 percent reduction from the current standards, environmental groups, such as Environmental Defense (so influential with North Carolina’s Democratic Party) and the media worshipped American Lung Association, view it as a meaningless giveaway to smokestack industries. (You know, those pampered, well healed industries like textiles and furniture manufacturing).

Tighter and tighter government standards are what keeps these groups in business and keeps the money flowing. The MO is to lower standards, wait for the country to almost come completely in compliance with those standards, then complain that the current standards, which the enviros supported only a few years earlier, are lax and need to be tightened. Once they are tightened and large portions of the country are once again thrown out of compliance, the enviros then point to this fact, suggesting that pollution has gotten worse and that more contributions to their coffers are necessary to fight the evil polluters. As the country spends hundreds of billions of dollars and comes into compliance with the new standards, pressure groups like ED and the ALA, along with their allies in Congress and state houses across the country, start the cycle over again.

Joel concludes his article with exasperation:

“Could public debate on air pollution be any more absurd? EPA proposes a new standard that would reduce allowable peak PM2.5 levels by 45 percent and that would double the national PM2.5 non-attainment rate. Yet environmentalists call this ?status quo? with a straight face, health scientists claim EPA ignored their recommendations, and journalists endorse these false assessments…Polls continue to show that most Americans mistakenly believe air pollution has been worsening and that too little is being done to improve air quality. With our current band of ?reliable sources? for air pollution information, is it any wonder?”