By kowtowing to industry, agency actions increase the risk of death from the COVID-19 virus. Action Alert!
A recent Harvard study found that a small increase in soot air pollution is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they are waving multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. Through these actions, the EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health.
The agency’s announcement about relaxing environmental standards came just six days after the oil industry asked for regulatory relief during the coronavirus outbreak.
Studies of SARS, another coronavirus, also found that, as air pollution increased, so too did SARS case fatality. Note that air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions.
First, the EPA passed up an opportunity to reduce industrial soot emissions—the same type of pollution that the Harvard study found increased the COVID-19 death rate. The EPA’s own scientists found that strengthening the rule could save 12,150 people a year. Who knows how many more deaths on top of these estimates will come about as a result of increased susceptibility to COVID-19?
The agency also just completed a rule that will expose us to more mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants. Mercury occurs naturally in coal and fossil fuels; burning these substances releases mercury into the atmosphere. The rule will bar the EPA from taking secondary public health benefits into account when conducting a cost/benefit analysis for a rule. The intent of the change is to provide legal justification to weaken mercury emissions rules. Recall that mercury in any form is toxic. Organic mercury readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and damages developing nervous tissue. Children are at the greatest risk, as exposure to methylmercury can impact cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, motor skills, and spatial skills.
The EPA is also rolling back car pollution standards. Old standards required an average 5% reduction in emissions annually from cars and light truck fleets; the new standard requires just 1.5%. According to an analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund, the change will result in a total of 18,500 premature deaths, 25,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory problems, and $190 billion in health costs between now and 2050. Again, these estimates do not include how many more people will become infected and die from COVID-19 as a result of exposure to additional air pollution.
Air pollution clearly stresses our respiratory system and makes us chronically sick, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Note too that the most vulnerable are most at risk, as low-income neighborhoods near highways and industrial plants will experience the highest level of exposure.
All of these rollbacks have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. This is inexcusable. Hardly more evidence is needed that the EPA is completely in the pocket of polluters. This crony capitalism will lead to many preventable deaths that will be on the agency’s hands.
Action Alert! Write to Congress and the EPA, telling them to reverse these decisions to protect us from more severe COVID 19 infection. Please send your message immediately.
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Bolognavirus !
Please keep the air and water and land protected during this pandemic. We need more protection, not less.
Reinstate all regulations to protect humanity from pollution.
Since all this administration seems to care about is corporate welfare, how about this: if there is nobody left alive to buy your crap then there will be no profits. So how about we protect the environment so it can sustain the lives of the people that create the market for all of the corporate produced crap so tRump and all of their corporate lackeys can continue to live in the high style to which they’ve become accustomed.
The pandemic is no reason to increase the pollution!
No environmental rollbacks.
Stop letting industry poison ourselves and future generations!
The EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health. Reverse your decisions and protect us from more severe COVID-19 infection.
Stopping the control of regulations on the industries that pollute our air, land, and water is unconscionable. These resources are ours, and corporations have no right to pollute the air I breathe, the water I drink, or the land where I grow my food. Resume regulations immediately.
In this pandemic where COVID-19 is killing Americans by the thousands, mostly through extensive damage to the lungs, it is absolutely essential that we get our air back to its regulated state, where there is less particulants, NO2, and SO2.
Cutting health/environmental regulations especially during a pandemic is the apex of idiocy and malfeasance. Kleptocratic kakistocracy starring dumb ass wanna be mafia Don
What a crock !! No way Harvard has any credit ability. They are a elitist liberal college that will never tell the truth if it will hurt their liberal agenda. How can you get a actual honest study done in the time they had to do it ?? Not possible. Just made up stuff like all liberals are known to do !!
This is no time to roll back protections. This virus thrives on the very things they are trying to release. Now, it’s even more important to protect the enviroment
The EPA must act in the best interests of the health of us all.
We need to take measures to protect and preserve our planet and the environment not destroy it!! This is nothing but the greedy wanting to get richer no matter the cost! We only have one planet!! There is not do over if we destroy this one!!
Complete idiots that are not in the slightest bit interested in the environment
It’s absurd and unconscionable that the rush to reopen factories and restaurants and states and everything else takes precedence over saving human lives. This is unconscionable greed wiping out common sense and human safety.
Rolling back regulations for levels of toxins and pollutants during a pandemic is insane. This must not happen.
Air pollution clearly stresses our respiratory system and makes us chronically sick, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Note too that the most vulnerable are most at risk, as low-income neighborhoods near highways and industrial plants will experience the highest level of exposure.
Slacking off environmental and human protections means more deaths. Y’all DO realize that COVID19 hurts our lungs, right?
Not a smart move, people.
Not smart.
Allowing industry to pollute more puts citizens at a higher risk. Allowing dirty air is simply a dirty policy.
What the? is the EPA and who do they protect? Americans are sick of a worthless TRUMP EPA!
Sky is almost clear! Greed needs to pollute!
As a lifetime asthmatic, I consider the EPA’s actions reckless and malicious. They are obviously dominated by the polluters. They should be held responsible, as murderers, for the many deaths they will cause.
Robert Beckerle
Attorney at Law
Mobile, AL
Please send a link to the Harvard study referred to in the headline
I have never been so embarrassed to be an American until this destructive administration.
Please someone show some integrity and backbone and support ALL original EPA rules -save people, save the planet.
Reducing pollution and emissions standards during a pandemic that attacks the lungs is beyond foolish and dangerous. Seriously, why are you putting Americans’ health in danger? This is nothing short of criminal and must be stopped. Why do polluters, who have already caused countless deaths and health problems due to their indifference, get a free pass? We have to start treating the planet like it’s our home, because it is. Everything is connected – climate change, rising water level and temperatures, wildlife markets and factory farming, pollution, health issues and pandemics like the coronavirus. Please, give the environment the priority it deserves and needs, and not industries like fossil fuel, logging and mining interests. Before it’s too late.
Thank you.
Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels of all forms weakens humans’ health. It leaves us all more susceptible to diseases causing increased health care costs and early deaths. Leave the regulations that reduce air pollution, water pollution and harm to the land in place. Make violations of environmental regulations punishable by law. Require restoration of areas polluted by industry to be paid for by polluters. Enforce regulations not reduce regulations.
What kind of insanity is present in the ignoramus from Mar-a-Lago’s EPA that makes ANYONE think that making the environment worse by poisoning the air and water will benefit the pandemic weary American Public? Oh, that’s right, the only thing that matters is money, the corporation’s profits and making republican supporters happy.
The rest of America doesn’t matter to the cowards, traitors and unethical republicans.
It is always the right time to do the right thing. PEOPLE OVER PROFITS.
The EPA is supposed to protect the environment, not cause it harm.
We need to take better care of what is left of our environment, for people, wildlife, and marine life.
Wheeler should be fired and put in jail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By kowtowing to industry,the epa actions increase the risk of death from the COVID-19 virus. A recent Harvard study found that a small increase in soot air pollution is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate.
Studies of SARS, another coronavirus, also found that, as air pollution increased, so too did SARS case fatality. Note that air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions.First, the EPA passed up an opportunity to reduce industrial soot emissions—the same type of pollution that the Harvard study found increased the COVID-19 death rate. The EPA’s own scientists found that strengthening the rule could save 12,150 people a year.
The agency also just completed a rule that will expose us to more mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants. Mercury occurs naturally in coal and fossil fuels; burning these substances releases mercury into the atmosphere. The rule will bar the EPA from taking secondary public health benefits into account when conducting a cost/benefit analysis for a rule. The intent of the change is to provide legal justification to weaken mercury emissions rules. Recall that mercury in any form is toxic. Organic mercury readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and damages developing nervous tissue. Children are at the greatest risk, as exposure to methylmercury can impact cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, motor skills, and spatial skills.
The EPA is also rolling back car pollution standards. Old standards required an average 5% reduction in emissions annually from cars and light truck fleets; the new standard requires just 1.5%. According to an analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund, the change will result in a total of 18,500 premature deaths, 25,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory problems, and $190 billion in health costs between now and 2050. Again, these estimates do not include how many more people will become infected and die from COVID-19 as a result of exposure to additional air pollution.
Air pollution clearly stresses our respiratory system and makes us chronically sick, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Note too that the most vulnerable are most at risk, as low-income neighborhoods near highways and industrial plants will experience the highest level of exposure.
By allowing all of these regulations to lapse your putting the citizens health at risk and only care about corporations, corporations are not people and this kind of lapse in judgement is hurting humans, animals and the Earth our only home!!
SO YOUR JOB. The EPA is environmental protection, not corporate protection. Your children and grandchildren are counting on you
A recent Harvard study found that a small increase in soot air pollution is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they are waving multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. Through these actions, the EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health.
The agency’s announcement about relaxing environmental standards came just six days after the oil industry asked for regulatory relief during the coronavirus outbreak.
Studies of SARS, another coronavirus, also found that, as air pollution increased, so too did SARS case fatality. Note that air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions.
First, the EPA passed up an opportunity to reduce industrial soot emissions—the same type of pollution that the Harvard study found increased the COVID-19 death rate. The EPA’s own scientists found that strengthening the rule could save 12,150 people a year. Who knows how many more deaths on top of these estimates will come about as a result of increased susceptibility to COVID-19?
The agency also just completed a rule that will expose us to more mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants. Mercury occurs naturally in coal and fossil fuels; burning these substances releases mercury into the atmosphere. The rule will bar the EPA from taking secondary public health benefits into account when conducting a cost/benefit analysis for a rule. The intent of the change is to provide legal justification to weaken mercury emissions rules. Recall that mercury in any form is toxic. Organic mercury readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and damages developing nervous tissue. Children are at the greatest risk, as exposure to methylmercury can impact cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, motor skills, and spatial skills.
The EPA is also rolling back car pollution standards. Old standards required an average 5% reduction in emissions annually from cars and light truck fleets; the new standard requires just 1.5%. According to an analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund, the change will result in a total of 18,500 premature deaths, 25,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory problems, and $190 billion in health costs between now and 2050. Again, these estimates do not include how many more people will become infected and die from COVID-19 as a result of exposure to additional air pollution.
Air pollution clearly stresses our respiratory system and makes us chronically sick, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Note too that the most vulnerable are most at risk, as low-income neighborhoods near highways and industrial plants will experience the highest level of exposure.
All of these rollbacks have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. This is inexcusable. Hardly more evidence is needed that the EPA is completely in the pocket of polluters. This crony capitalism will lead to many preventable deaths that will be on the agency’s hands.
Time to clean up our Earth; it’s the only home we have. Let’s save lives & the Environment. There’s a reason we have Earth Day; let’s celebrate it every day!
Trump is the anti Christ and is destroying our planet morally, ethically, spiritualy and environmentally. The future generations can only survive 4 years of this sick person!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ask Harvard Science Dept. Why they are spraying Calcium Carbonate in the stratosphere to block solar rays from reaching the earth, and cause global cooling, funded by the Gates Foundation. Their project started in Spring of 2019, just months before the Corona virus outbreak. Heat and sun kill the virus on objects. How convenient for Gates.
I would love an answer to that.
Sorry, but I would rather have electricity. Most of us would die if we did not have electricity. And most of it comes from coal and carbon fuel powered electricity producing plants. Do you want to go back to living in the 1800’s?? Not me!!
I just can’t wait until trump loses the election this fall. Then we can repair the agencies that he has ruined. The coal plants were and are evil at this time in history and need to be eliminated. Dammit…we use coal to make a lot of the countries electricity. That’s a hell of a lot of mercury released to damage human lives.
I find the EPA taking advantage of the current pandemic when it’s more than apparent at how much the earth is cleansing itself. Air quality has improved. Animals now being sighted more and rivers clearing. I find the EPA is complacent truthfully and should have an entire new cabinet installed. One that actually cares about the environment instead of stuffing their pockets!
You MUST stop removing any of our current pollution controls. Our health and lives are worth much more than corporate profits. To reduce our current protections (and to not place more) is criminal and life threatening.
Studies of SARS, another coronavirus, also found that, as air pollution increased, so too did SARS case fatality. Note that air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions.
First, the EPA passed up an opportunity to reduce industrial soot emissions—the same type of pollution that the Harvard study found increased the COVID-19 death rate. The EPA’s own scientists found that strengthening the rule could save 12,150 people a year. Who knows how many more deaths on top of these estimates will come about as a result of increased susceptibility to COVID-19?
Why are you ignoring the signs of the obvious?
Allowing more pollution is not the answer.
Please protect America from more COVID-19 deaths due to the environment!
#SaveAmerica
I am old enough to remember when the EPA was founded, yes under a Republican President (Richard Nixon , not our most wonderful president, but he did accomplish some good things, including the EPA when it actually did its job). This Republican seems to want to disestablish the entire reason for the agency (and several others) and instead let it act to worsen our environment for the increased profit of those who own/run the facilities. BAD, BAD, BAD!!ll need to be protec
We all need to be protected as much as possible from COVID 19. Even those who own the polluting factories have to breathe and can be impacted, as can their relatives including grandchildren.
Please put standards back in place to save our environment
My family’s health has been affected by fracking and other ozone pollution in Colorado for years. My staff have had high levels of respiratory health issues, even during the summer, which is obviously linked to high ozone levels. Why on Earth would we allow more pollution during this COVID outbreak?
This is the time to ramp up protections from pollution.
This is outrageous conduct!
The epitome of stupidity.
Please don’t roll back any environmental regulations. Increased pollution in the air caused more people to die from the covid-19 virus and other diseases. Please protect the people on this planet by not allowing industry to increase any kind of pollutions. It is life-threatening and must not be done.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they are waving multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. Through these actions, the EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health. I demand you reverse these decisions to protect us from more severe COVID 19 infection.
It’s frustrating to know that when we defeat COVID19 we’ll still be facing a “Love Canal” type of clean-up the Trump Administration is allowing to happen right now. Why in the world would anyone vote for Donald Trump? He’s always been an over-bearing, crooked, selfish, arrogant, moron, prick.
I don’t understand any of this. I couldn’t begin to knowingly cause a pollution event.
I oppose the EPA’s decision to wave multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. The EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health. I urge the EPA to reverse these decisions.
STOP YOUR REVERSAL OF CLEAN STADARDS FOR AIR AND WATER!
Science speaks.. Americans must listen! Please read!
EPA – Environmental PROTECTION Agency. Do your jobs! You are not tasked with helping corporations, or donors line their pockets at the expense of our planet. Rolling back protections for a quick buck is so short sighted and dangerous. This administration will be gone soon, but the damage to our planet may be irreparable. Don’t let this happen!
Trump is seriously demented. He does NOT CARE if the world suffers, as long as he can profit from it. Rolling back EPA standards, putting a climate denier as head of the EPA, everything he has done since this virus started has all been detrimental to America and the planet. Do ANY of you in Congress have a brain, a backbone, a conscious? The things Trump does to undercut EVERYONE is silently unopposed by the lackeys, the GOP and Congress. These rollbacks affect you, your children, their children. How can you stay loyal to the worst PERSON on Earth? He is horrible, he has no imagination, no forethought or afterthought, he just barrels through life destroying everything in his path. Where is the pushback, the intestinal fortitude? Everyone in Congress should RESIGN and let younger people rule this country. It is THEIR world that YOU are letting be devastated. RESIGN OR DO YOUR JOB & STAND UP TO TRUMP & his sycophants!!!
The EPA is supposed to protect people, not polluters.
Stop Trump from destroying our planet. End this living nightmare we cannot seem to wake up from. Trump is a cancer, excise him and put him in prison where the traitor belongs. Give him FOUR walls, padded, with a small window, and a nice jacket that ties in back.
I am a sufferer of air pollutants. Diagnosed with dyspnea, I have labored night and day for years on end to complete a single breath. NO medicine exists to treat it. I moved to a small, rural town so that I could breathe. I had to go on disability so that I could leave industrial areas where I could have worked. But I had to leave so that I could breathe. Increasing soot only damages our economy. The relatively SMALL cost to industry to scrub exhaust would be passed on the the consumer, anyway. We need to clean up America. There’s no REASON to harm people when we have it in our hands to clean up our air so that everybody can have a life: industry and it’s pollution can be downsized to allow people to live. Industrial pollution can’t be allowed to go back to what it was. Please help us keep air clean for those of us who need to have clean air to breathe.
CORRUPT Trump and his CORRUPT lackey Andrew Wheeler are KILLING AMERICANS!!!!!!!!!!
They want to further enrich the big businesses that POLLUTE — and they DO NOT CARE how many human beings DIE as a result of their corruption!!!!!!!!!!!!
The world is suffering a PANDEMIC that KILLS PEOPLE BY HURTING THEIR RESPIRATION.
But Trump and Wheeler are DELIBERATELY INCREASING AIR POLLUTION and DELIBERATELY KILLING PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trump and Wheeler MUST BE ARRESTED — and PROSECUTED — and CONVICTED — and IMPRISONED for First-Degree MURDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By kowtowing to industry, agency actions increase the risk of death from the COVID-19 virus. Action Alert!
A recent Harvard study found that a small increase in soot air pollution is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they are waving multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. Through these actions, the EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health.
The agency’s announcement about relaxing environmental standards came just six days after the oil industry asked for regulatory relief during the coronavirus outbreak.
Studies of SARS, another coronavirus, also found that, as air pollution increased, so too did SARS case fatality. Note that air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions.
First, the EPA passed up an opportunity to reduce industrial soot emissions—the same type of pollution that the Harvard study found increased the COVID-19 death rate. The EPA’s own scientists found that strengthening the rule could save 12,150 people a year. Who knows how many more deaths on top of these estimates will come about as a result of increased susceptibility to COVID-19?
The agency also just completed a rule that will expose us to more mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants. Mercury occurs naturally in coal and fossil fuels; burning these substances releases mercury into the atmosphere. The rule will bar the EPA from taking secondary public health benefits into account when conducting a cost/benefit analysis for a rule. The intent of the change is to provide legal justification to weaken mercury emissions rules. Recall that mercury in any form is toxic. Organic mercury readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and damages developing nervous tissue. Children are at the greatest risk, as exposure to methylmercury can impact cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, motor skills, and spatial skills.
The EPA is also rolling back car pollution standards. Old standards required an average 5% reduction in emissions annually from cars and light truck fleets; the new standard requires just 1.5%. According to an analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund, the change will result in a total of 18,500 premature deaths, 25,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory problems, and $190 billion in health costs between now and 2050. Again, these estimates do not include how many more people will become infected and die from COVID-19 as a result of exposure to additional air pollution.
Air pollution clearly stresses our respiratory system and makes us chronically sick, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. Note too that the most vulnerable are most at risk, as low-income neighborhoods near highways and industrial plants will experience the highest level of exposure.
All of these rollbacks have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. This is inexcusable. Hardly more evidence is needed that the EPA is completely in the pocket of polluters. This crony capitalism will lead to many preventable deaths that will be on the agency’s hands.
Please keep our environmental protections in place! Do not put your citizens at more risk by exposing them to more emissions, more gases, more toxic metals. Your job is to protect us—not increase the risks we face. Do not risk our environment and our health. Your recent rollbacks are inexcusable and dangerous. Please do your jobs instead of causing more deaths!
The EPA needs to protect us all it can. Less soot in the air is the least they can do. Big money talks too loudly.
We are depending on you to make honest / unbiased decisions to protect people and the environment in this high risk time of pollution and the COVID-19 pandemic. Crony capitalism is inexcusable and leads to preventable deaths. Do the right thing, not the profitable crony business deal.
You people are MORONS!
The economy is being destroyed by idiots like you. Once destroyed, MILLIONS will die, thanks to turds like you.
GO TO HELL!!!!!
Will you please stop rolling back pollution guards that were in place for the health of our people and planet. Enough with putting profit before people!
I’ll never understand the EPA hurting us over and over and over.
These insiders breathe the same air that we do, its monumentally ignorant.
Check
When one means letting go of a higher standard in favor of weaker one the right word is “waiving.”
Sorry to be annoying about this but using “waving” instead of “waiving” should be avoided. Thank you!
It truly seems that the wrong criminals are in prison.
Air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions. The EPA is also rolling back car pollution standards. Old standards required an average 5% reduction in emissions annually from cars and light truck fleets; the new standard requires just 1.5%. According to an analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund, the change will result in a total of 18,500 premature deaths, 25,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory problems, and $190 billion in health costs between now and 2050. Again, these estimates do not include how many more people will become infected and die from COVID-19 as a result of exposure to additional air pollution.
All of these rollbacks have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. This is inexcusable. Hardly more evidence is needed that the EPA is completely in the pocket of polluters. This crony capitalism will lead to many preventable deaths that will be on the agency’s hands.
Leave the EPA alone. You are causing so much extra destruction and public health issues by the rollbacks. For a few bucks you’re allowed to destroy MY PARKS, my HEALTH? I don’t think so. Put the EPA back to the way you found it in 2016, plus you need to help the environment and health even more!
I VOTE.
I AM WATCHING…
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they are waving multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. Through these actions, the EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection.
Studies of SARS, another coronavirus, also found that, as air pollution increased, so too did SARS case fatality. Note that air pollution increases the risk of chronic and acute respiratory diseases, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes; people with these conditions have a fatality rate from COVID-19 that is 700-1,400% higher compared to those who don’t have these preconditions.
Please reverse these decisions to protect us from more severe COVID 19 infection.
No one at the EPA has any respect for humanity. Following these idiotic plans is just wrong.
Congress you must reverse the decision made to roll-back EPA. ANY DEATHS from the roll-backs WILL BE ON YOUR SHOULDERS.!!
this regime’s EPA has forgotten what the P in EPA stands for and WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THAT!!! BRING THE P BACK IN THE EPA NOW!!!
EPA to reverse decisions and protect us from more Corona virus.
We need the EPA to do their job and start protecting Americans! We need pollution standards to go back to pre-Trump standards and even better!
Is the Trump administration responsible for this aberration?
The decision to roll back EPA standards at this time when we are facing a pandemic – one that attacks the respiratory system specifically – is nonsensical and dangerous. The change will result in a total of 18,500 premature deaths, 25,000 more asthma attacks, 350,000 other respiratory problems, and $190 billion in health costs between now and 2050. Again, these estimates do not include how many more people will become infected and die from COVID-19 as a result of exposure to additional air pollution.STOP THIS and reinstate – then ardently ENFORCE – the rules that protect our air and water.
I sign this because of my status as a concerned voter and citizen.
So the Republican thinking is that if coronavirus doesn’t get us, air pollution should finish the job!!!
EPA you are here to protect our citizens not kill us. Thank you.
It is stupid and irresponsible beyond belief to decrease regulations on air pollution at ANY TIME but during a pandemic causing respiratory disease it is borderline criminal…… We need stronger pollution controls, not weaker ones. Please reconsider these actions and pass legislation that protects the citizens of our country, and not the companies and agencies that are making it worse,…
stop the pollution
To increase pollution and other environmental threats during a pandemic is madness.
Please reconsider your decisions to relax environmental standards related to:
– Reducing industrial soot emissions
– Exposing people to more mercury and other toxic metals from oil and coal-fired power plants
– Rolling back car pollution standards.
When and where did you republicans and banksters lose your conscience, moral fiber, and anything good you may have had? Please do the right thing for once in your life. Please!!!
The government is putting the corporations first, the people last, including their health and at this point, even their survival. This is a criminal activity that begs prosecution in a court of law. I want to see it happen, for each and every politician who puts the people at risk for health, and especially during a declared world pandemic. I ask that journalists research who voted which way in public office, and expose them by name. It is time for violent crime in public office to be stopped. Period. End.
The EPA, who are they protecting?
Please start acting responsibly. No more coal or oil industry pollution! Thank you.
We need clean air and healthy trees, plants and water to survive. The rest is extra stuff,
What sad news. Thanks for sharing this well-researched article. Appreciate the mention of how children and minorities are going to be adversely affected by these rollbacks.
We need in this exact moment… the best and smartest and most thoughtful leader inThis country!!! We are woefully unprepared!!!
Pollution is contributing to people’s poor health! Now, more than ever, it is vital to enforce EPA regulations!
In what universe is air pollution good for any living being good!!!!
What’s more to contemplate than this?
“A recent Harvard study found that a small increase in soot air pollution is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate.”
Let’s keep it simple: we can immediately open our economy without polluting our environment. Can’t we walk and chew gum at the same time?
need to limit outbreaks w measures!!
The EPA should be doing everything possible to curb all pollution to our biosphere, including air and water pollution.
Air pollution clearly stresses our respiratory system and makes us chronically sick, leaving us more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection.
All of these rollbacks have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. This is inexcusable. Hardly more evidence is needed that the EPA is completely in the pocket of polluters. This crony capitalism will lead to many preventable deaths that will be on the agency’s hands.
Scientists can prove that human life and businesses on this planet are negativity impacting it’s natural state in increasing amounts resulting in Global Warming. The measures we take to conserve natural resources and protect them are put in place to also protect human life and at times animal lives yet the current administration seems driven to undo whatever they can to make more money or so stated “create economic growth”. Answer me this? What ground will your children and their children’s children stand on that is not a foul, polluted unchangeable mass of poison inherited by a temporarily fatter wallet. There is no restraint only further and faster undoing of any and all environmental laws and rulings to that might hinder business from happening at maximum profit. What good is the hard won freedoms of any American citizen if they also can not breathe from all the pollution or can not drink clean water without buying something to take out the poison in it? And if what I describe is not the current reality then wait and not very long now at all. Wait and witness for yourself when your sunset is not so clear because of the smog and the Bermuda blue waters are devoid of fish or even blue from all the trash and pollution allowed into it. How naive to think one can just “cross that bridge when they get to it” If it comes to be, you’re already screwed.
A recent Harvard study found that a small increase in soot air pollution is associated with a 15% increase in the COVID-19 death rate. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced they are waving multiple environmental laws that reduce air pollution for the foreseeable future due to COVID-19. Through these actions, the EPA is putting us more at risk from COVID-19 infection, prioritizing polluter profits over public health.
Increasing pollution now makes no sense and will hurt recovery by those who have been ill
You do not have to do what you are told. You have to do what good conscience demands and step up to DO YOUR JOBS! Rolling back regulations that were crafted for the betterment of the people of this country is going to take a toll on your place in history when you are remembered as part of the problem and the pain, not as part of the evolutionary path we are trying to enter as this hell of a time continues and we struggle to maintain loving kindness, common sense, and a vision for a livable world.
Stop destroying our precious planet!
The most at-risk are asthma sufferers, so naturally the filthy air combined with a virus that attacks those with pulmonary issues means that pollution is putting more people at risk.
I already have asthma so I am at greater risk from COVID 19 and the research says that increased air pollution makes me at even greater risk! Stop risking my life even more!
All of these rollbacks have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US. This is inexcusable. Hardly more evidence is needed that the EPA is completely in the pocket of polluters. This crony capitalism will lead to many preventable deaths that will be on the agency’s hands.
Deregulation is a massive mistake and should be reversed. Those regulations are in place to protect people and the environment and should continue to do so.
Protect the planet from man’s abuse!
Please protect us from deadly pollution and increased susceptibility to getting the Covid virus. Make the EPA set standards to protect the health of the planet and the people living on it,
We have learned that the Chinese People who were the most impacted by the virus were those living in the most polluted areas, males who smoked cigarettes, as their lungs were the most compromised and the virus was able to easily penetrate the lining of the lungs.
Breathing clean air should be a fundamental right. I demand the right to breathe clean air.
SHAME!