Comment to the EPA by 2/16

[maxx]

This is to undo the Bushies' love for airborne lead.

https://act.credoaction.com/campaign...235945-0BvRqRx

[Mikeg]

This is to undo the Bushies' love for airborne lead.

You must love airborne lead, too. You are endorsing continued unmonitored emissions at any facility that emits up to half a ton of airborne lead per year.

[Mikeg]

For the record:

• between 1980 and 2005, the average amount of lead in the air has decreased by nearly 97 percent. [source]
• since the late 1970s, blood lead concentrations for children ages one to five dropped from about 15 micrograms per deciliter to less than 2 micrograms per deciliter [source]
• Air is no longer the most common source of major exposure to lead. In most places, water and lead paint are more troublesome sources. [source]
• on Oct. 16, 2008, the EPA tightened by a factor of 10, the maximum limit of airborne lead particulates permissible by law. The new limit became 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter. The old limit of 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter had stood unchanged since 1978. [source]
• also on Oct. 16, 2008, the EPA mandated the monitoring of existing sources of lead where emissions exceed one ton per year. [source]
• environmental critics of the Bush administration's record on science-based policy were pleased by the EPA's revised airborne lead standards that were announced on Oct. 16, 2008. In setting the revised standard, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson took the advice of his scientific advisors who had recommended a standard below 0.20 micrograms per cubic meter. [source]

Partisan critics like "maxx" would have you falsely believe that the change now being proposed by the EPA is needed to undo some sort of a decision by the Bush administration which had weakened the standards for airborne lead. The facts are clear, there are no new changes being proposed in the airborne lead standard of 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter, which was set in 2008. The EPA is only proposing a change in the number of monitoring sites for ensuring that each county can meet the revised 2008 standard.

For the record, I would like to see the proposed monitoring change implemented only in counties where it will be necessary to meet the airborne lead standard of 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter.