Air Pollution Increases Blood Clot Risk

(WebMD) Air pollution increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) -- dangerous blood clots in the veins -- even at pollution levels the EPA deems "acceptable."

Harvard researcher Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Italy studied 870 people diagnosed with DVT from 1995 to 2005. They compared their particulate air pollution exposure in the year before their diagnosis to that of 1,210 matched people without DVT.

They found that DVT risk goes up 70% for every 10 microgram-per-cubic-meterrise in particulate air pollution above 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (the lowest pollution level measured in the study).

The U.S. EPA standard for particulate air pollution is 150 micrograms per cubic meter of air. However, it's likely that fine and very fine particles cause most of the health risks linked to particulate air pollution. The EPA sets much lower standards for these smaller particles, which Baccarelli and colleagues did not specifically measure."

Our findings introduce a novel and common risk factor into the pathogenesis of DVT and, at the same time, give further substance to the call for tighter standards and continued efforts aimed at reducing the impact of urban air pollutants on human health," Baccarelli and colleagues conclude.

Air pollution affects the heart and blood vessels even more than the lungs, notes Robert D. Brook, MD, a University of Michigan expert on the cardiovascular effects of air pollution. An editorial by Brook accompanies the Baccarelli report in the May 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study, Brook notes, adds DVT to a long list of cardiovascular illnesses linked to air pollution that includes heart attacks, heart failure, stroke, and sudden death.

However, Brook warns that while Baccarelli and colleagues link air pollution to a huge increase in DVT risk, part of this result may be due to chance or the unique circumstances of the population studied. Other studies are needed to better determine the absolute risk.

Even so, Brook says, we don't have to wait for these studies -- we already know that air pollution, even at current levels, is not healthy."

You do not need to know every last detail about the archer who shot you with a poison arrow before you know you need to pull the arrow out," he writes.

to the source

(AP PHOTO)

White House takes air out of new EPA regulations

THIS MARCH, the Environmental Protection Agency was about to take a major step forward in curbing pollutants that cause smog - until it got word from the White House to make it a baby step instead. The weakened rule will result in several thousand preventable deaths annually. Environmental groups and public health organizations should take the EPA to court for letting last-minute interference by the president and the White House's Office of Management and Budget dictate a less stringent standard.

Thanks to improved pollution controls on cars, power plants, and other industries, Americans breathe much cleaner air than they did a generation ago. But smog is still severe enough in many areas to cause respiratory and heart problems and shorten lives.

The rule regulates acceptable levels of ozone, the main component of smog. Ozone forms when the sun heats up vehicle exhaust, smokestack pollution, and emissions from gasoline and many other substances.

Even under the old standard, set in 1997, most of Massachusetts, with the exception of Bristol County and Nantucket, was in violation, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The new standard will place the entire state out of compliance. Fixing that will require a continuation of the vehicle-inspection and maintenance programs now under way, in addition to efforts to reduce emissions from solvents and paints. New measures, such as encouraging greater energy efficiency to reduce pollution by power generators, likely will be needed as well, according to DEP.

It's well worth the trouble and expense to gain improvements in respiratory health. Nationally, the EPA estimates that its new rule will prevent 1,300 to 3,500 premature deaths a year. A stricter rule favored by its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee would save as many as 9,200 lives a year.

Under current law, EPA can consider the cost of complying with a clean-air standard in setting a timeline of compliance, but not in deciding how stringent the rule should be. Memos leaked last week indicate that input from the bean counters in the budget office did affect the standard, although EPA administrator Stephen Johnson denies it.

Johnson did call recently for amending the Clean Air Act to allow the agency to weigh compliance costs in setting an antipollution rule. Congress should not give this proposal the time of day, and should instead call Johnson before it to explain just what role the White House played in his decision to allow higher smog levels than his own scientific advisers recommended.

Source - boston.com

EPA chief warned not to deny California on emission standard

WASHINGTON - A Environmental Protection Agency official warned her boss, EPA chief Stephen Johnson, that if he denied California's bid to enforce its own tailpipe emissions rules, the agency's credibility "will be irreparably damaged" and Johnson would have to think about resigning.

Margot Oge, the head of EPA's office of transportation and air quality, also told Administrator Johnson in an Oct. 17 memo that "there is no legal or technical justification for denying this," despite "alternative interpretations that have been suggested by the automakers."

These internal warnings were included in EPA documents released Tuesday by Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who chairs the Environment Committee and had requested the records.

Johnson turned down California's request for a waiver from the Clean Air Act on Dec. 19, after months of review. He overruled the recommendations of senior staff members, according to several media reports, and the documents released Tuesday provide some examples.

Boxer said the documents showed "an agency in crisis," and called on the EPA to release additional documents about meetings with White House officials.

"The documents show the dedicated, professional staff working hard to protect our health and our environment," Boxer said. "We see more and more evidence of Administrator Johnson ignoring the science and the facts, and discarding the advice of his staff."

Boxer plans to question Johnson today when he appears before the committee to defend the EPA's proposed budget.

Johnson has defended his decision, announced the day a new energy bill was signed into law. He said the higher fuel economy standards contained in that bill precluded the need for state initiatives to tackle greenhouse-gas emissions.

Oge's office and other legal and technical staffers sent e-mails and memos citing California's long history of receiving EPA waivers - only two of the state's 95 requests had been even partially denied - and the case California had made for its own greenhouse-gas emissions standards. At least 16 other states are prepared to adopt the California standards if they are approved.

"I think Johnson now appreciates that there are additional conditions in California that make them vulnerable to climate change," a staffer wrote others in the EPA climate change division on Oct. 31.

Oge's "talking points" for Johnson, prepared by deputy director Christopher Grundler, recognized the historic nature of the decision and the pressures Johnson faced. The auto industry and the Bush administration's Department of Transportation lobbied against the California regulations, which in the absence of federal regulations were the most ambitious effort to tackle emissions causing global warming.

"Clearly the stakes are huge, especially with respect to future climate work," Oge's Oct. 17 memo for Johnson said. "You have to find a way to get this done. If you cannot, you will face a pretty big personal decision about whether you are able to stay in the job under those circumstances."

William Reilly, a former EPA administrator in President George H.W. Bush's administration, also worked with Oge and other top staffers in an unsuccessful effort to persuade Johnson to grant the waiver, according to members of Boxer's staff.

On May 1, when Johnson prepared to attend a White House meeting on the issue, his staff prepared a power point presentation noting the history of California waivers, and that "Congress wanted California to be afforded the broadest possible discretion" with such regulations.

The EPA did not turn over documents about that May 1 meeting.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger quickly sued the EPA in early January to reverse its decision. Because of the litigation, EPA officials said they do not want to disclose additional documents that could be used against them in court. They had asked that the documents turned over to the committee be kept confidential, but Boxer decided to release them.

Boxer said she expected the next president would overturn the EPA decision because Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain support California's waiver request.

"But why on earth should we wait that long?" Boxer said. "We're only wasting time and money."

By Frank Davies Mercury News Washington Bureau
Article Launched: 02/26/2008 03:55:15 PM PST

AP Photo

Bush, EPA Mercury Loophole Struck Down by DC Court

by Glynn Wilson

QUINTON, Ala., Feb. 9 - A mentally retarded boy stood in the middle of the country road, in front of a ramshackled house trailer and a burned down shack, as I came around the last bend and saw Alabama Power’s mammoth coal-fired Miller Steam Plant rising out of the strip mines and clear cuts in what used to be piney woods.

As I pulled alongside him on the edge of Jefferson and Walker counties northwest of Birmingham and rolled down the van window and was about to ask him what it was like to live in the shadow of one of the most foul, polluting power plants in the country, before I could say anything he started signing me, letting me know he could not hear, or speak.

The experts say mercury from power plants, a potent neurotoxin, causes brain damage and other serious health problems in at least 630,000 babies born each year, just in the United States. Their blood is contaminated when their pregnant mothers eat mercury-laden fish, most of it caught in water from polluted power plants.

With this information well established and widely known, however, mercury advisories are in place on about one-third of America’s lakes and one-fourth of its rivers. Experts say a single gram of mercury, or just 1/70th of a teaspoon, is enough to contaminate a 25-acre lake so that fish caught there are totally unsafe to eat.

Yet under the administration of President George W. Bush, the Environmental Protection Agency changed course from the years when the Clinton EPA wanted every one of the 1,100 power plants in the country to take concrete steps to reduce mercury emissions.

Under Bush, the EPA opted instead for a so-called “free market solution.”

The agency passed rules it claimed were legal under the Clean Air Act to allow a “cap and trade” system of pollution credits designed to lower the overall level of mercury pollution nationally, while allowing some power companies to continue dumping massive amounts of mercury and other pollutants into the air and water in places where management doesn’t want to spend the money to clean up its plants. Coal and power operations scar the American South landscape and devastate its people. Many of those places are mostly populated by poor people and minorities.

The Bush EPA market system would have allowed some companies, such as Southern Company’s Alabama Power, to purchase so-called “pollution credits.” In other words, they would have allowed them to send payments to other, cleaner plants, while spending nothing to clean up their own dirty plants.

According to scientists, health experts and environmentalists, this would have created “hot spots” of contamination in some places, such as the air over the city of Birmingham - and the water in the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River around the Miller Steam Plant, which discharges more than 1,500 pounds of mercury each year - the fourth-worst in the country.

Unwilling to live with that situation, however, a number of health and environmental organizations, including the Waterkeeper Alliance with a chapter here called the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, sued in federal court two years ago to stop the rules from going into effect.

And this past Friday, they won a major victory for all of us when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rebuked the Bush EPA and ruled the regulatory loophole illegal under the clear language of the law passed by Congress and signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970.
The Clean Air Act listed mercury as one of the pollutants to be regulated. The Bush EPA wanted to remove it from the list - without going to Congress to ask for a change in the law.

Sound familiar? The Bush administration doesn’t much like the law, whether it applies to torture, spying on Americans - or cleaning up the environment.

“These rules represented what was perhaps the biggest sellout to industry in the history of EPA,” said Waterkeeper Alliance legal director Scott Edwards, interviewed Saturday in New York. “It’s a real tragedy that we’ve had to spend two years getting this industry-scripted scheme struck down while energy companies continue to poison our children with mercury.”

Fourteen states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin, challenged the EPA’s rules in 2005, along with dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups and organizations representing nurses and doctors.
Notice Alabama is not on the list. Attempts to reach the Riley administration in Montgomery and Alabama Power for comments on the ruling failed over the weekend.

Southern Company’s Alabama Power is one of the worst polluters in the world and is known for manipulating politicians and the corporate press with its monopoly money, using its economic power to keep politicians on a leash, like wining and dining the state’s top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Troy King, in an Atlanta Braves sky box. It also uses “green washing” advertising campaigns - NOT to reach out for new customers, but to keep chain press outlets such as the Birmingham News and local TV news stations from covering its pollution critically.

Anyone in Alabama should be familiar with the blue bird ad campaign that has been running in newspapers and on TV stations for years, featuring two blue birds on a power line in ostensibly funny conversations. But critics of the program are beginning to ask why the power company needs a rate increase every year when it has a virtual lock on the power business with no real competition and it spends so much money on advertising. And it spends next to nothing on pollution reduction, a few paltry million each year while it racks up billions in profits, some say the highest guaranteed profit margin of any power company in the nation.

The Spin

Power industry groups are already hard at work trying to spin the story to blame the environmentalists, lawyers and the “liberal” courts for preventing the Bush EPA from implementing it’s plan to “clean up” the mercury pollution by getting the overall amount down nationally.

Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, a power industry trade group, issued this statement late Friday afternoon.

“Today, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated the so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule … the first ever national rule to address mercury air emissions. Ironically, with their aggressive litigation posture, the environmental community and their state allies have again caused uncertainty and delay in regulating mercury,” he said. “The Environmental Protection Agency essentially must return to the drawing board in developing a new mercury rule.”

Does that statement remind you of a movie called “Thank You For Smoking?” It should.

The Facts

Coal-fired power plants like the Miller Steam Plant are by far the largest source of airborne mercury in the U.S., releasing more than 50 tons of deadly mercury into the air each year. Gravity pulls much of it down to the earth, where it ends up in our waterways.

Delayed developmental milestones, reduced neurological test scores and cardiovascular disease also result from mercury exposure, and it has been linked to serious physical and central nervous system disorders such as various sexual dysfunctions and, according to numerous scientific studies, mental retardation.

Even the Bush EPA recently raised the estimate on the number of women whose mercury concentrations in umbilical cord blood is significantly higher than the mother’s blood concentration to 1 in 6 women nationwide.

Yet the most industry-friendly administration in the history of corporate capitalism spent a billion dollars of your hard-earned tax dollars to try and pass the illegal rules anyway.

More Reaction

Here are some other reactions to the DC court ruling.

Vickie Patton, an attorney with Environmental Defense, which along with Sierra Club and the National Wildlife Federation was represented by Earth Justice in the lawsuit, said: “The federal court agrees with the American Medical Association that EPA’s flawed mercury program for coal plants is hazardous to our health. This decision is a victory for the health of all Americans, but especially for our children who can suffer permanent brain damage from toxic mercury pollution.”

Alice McKeown, a coal analyst for the Sierra Club, said: “Coal company claims of ‘clean coal’ will now be put to the test. These mercury pollution reductions will be an important trial run to see if coal is still viable in a cleaner energy future.”

Ann Weeks, an attorney for Clean Air Task Force who represented U.S. PIRG, Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Conservation Law Foundation in the case said: “The court has now told EPA in no uncertain terms to follow the law as it is written. We are looking forward to working on rules that reflect the most stringent controls achievable for this industry, as the Clean Air Act requires. That’s what is needed now, if we are ever to alleviate the problem of mercury contamination in fish and wildlife.”

John Suttles, attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center who represented Physicians for Social Responsibility, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics in the lawsuit, said: “With today’s decision, EPA will now have to get back to the business of protecting people’s health rather than higher profits for electric utilities.”

“The Bush administration cannot ignore its responsibilities to bring power plants’ mercury pollution under control,” Earth Justice attorney James Pew said. “We hope the administration will gain some new respect for the law in its last year and start working to protect Americans from pollution and stop working to shield polluters from their lawful cleanup obligations.”

John Walke, attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the court’s ruling “should show power plant companies and the EPA once and for all that they may cheat and delay required clean-up obligations, but the law will catch up to them. Electric power plants are America’s worst polluters of mercury, smog, soot and global warming pollution, and their days of reckoning are long overdue.”

“This is a very positive ruling, but we should not forget that no matter how much this industry reduces mercury emissions, coal will never be clean,” added Waterkeeper Alliance President Steve Fleischli. “From mining to burning to toxic ash, ‘clean coal’ is a sham, a dangerous diversion at a time when we must move our national energy strategy to sustainable, renewable energy sources.”

The Ruling

A copy of the DC court decision is available in pdf format here.

EPA Must Set a Much Stronger Ozone Air Quality Standard

"The evidence is overwhelming" - The American Lung Association

On June 21, 2007 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to strengthen the official “limit” on ground level ozone smog. Unfortunately, EPA’s proposal fails to follow the law and protect public health adequately from this widespread and dangerous air pollutant.

Overwhelming scientific evidence, including reviews by independent scientists, confirm that public health is seriously at risk and needs much more protection. EPA will take comments until October 9, including at five public hearings in August and September. The American Lung Association and many other medical societies, public health and environmental groups are urging EPA to adopt standards that provide much more protection.

What is ozone?

Ozone (O3), commonly known as smog, forms when hydrocarbon vapors and nitrogen oxides react in the presence of sunlight and heat. Nitrogen oxides are emitted from combustion sources such as power plants, industrial boilers, motor vehicles, locomotives, and ships. Hydrocarbon vapors are emitted from motor vehicles, small engines, chemical plants, refineries, factories, gas stations, paint and other sources.

Why is ozone harmful?

Ozone reacts chemically (“oxidizes”) with internal body tissues, such as those in the lung. Some have described it as a strong “sunburn” on the lungs. It acts as a powerful respiratory irritant at the levels frequently found across the nation during the summer months. Ozone exposure may lead to:
􀂃 premature death
􀂃 shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing and coughing
􀂃 inflammation and damage to the lining of the lung.
􀂃 increased asthma attacks, greater need for medical treatment and for hospitalization for people with lung diseases, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
􀂃 long-term, repeated exposure to high levels of ozone may also lead to reduced lung capacity.

Who are most at risk?

􀂃 people with lung disease, especially chronic lung diseases such as asthma and COPD4
􀂃 children, because their airways are smaller, their respiratory defenses are not fully developed, and their higher breathing rates increase their exposure.
􀂃 people who work or exercise outdoors.
􀂃 senior citizens.
􀂃 otherwise healthy individuals who respond to lower levels of exposure than the average person.

What is the ozone standard?

• The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set and regularly review air pollution limits, called National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). EPA must follow the latest scientific evidence to set them where they protect public health, including the health of sensitive populations, with an adequate margin of safety.

• The standards help inform the public when the air is unhealthy and drive the clean up of air pollution.

• The last time the EPA revised the standard for ozone air pollution was 1997, when the Agency set an 8-hour average standard of 0.08 parts per million. This current standard is effectively 0.084 ppm due to a loophole that allows states to round down ozone concentrations.

• The Clean Air Act requires that the EPA set the standard to protect public health “with an adequate margin of safety” to protect sensitive populations that respond at lower concentrations than healthy adults. In 2002, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that protecting health was the only basis for the standard.

How is EPA proposing to change the ozone standard?

• Overwhelming evidence shows that the ozone standard must be much stronger than EPA has proposed to protect public health from serious harm.

• EPA has concluded that new scientific studies show that the current standards fail to protect public health, particularly for those with lung diseases, like asthma or emphysema.

• EPA has proposed to set the health standard to a level within the range of 0.070-0.075 ppm (70 -75 ppb) and to drop the rounding loophole. This is a modest improvement but it is weaker than EPA’s science advisors have recommended.

• Importantly, EPA is considering keeping the current weak standard of 0.084 ppm, a move that polluters are pushing . EPA could set a final standard that does nothing.

What did EPA’s independent science advisors recommend?

The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) is a group of expert scientists appointed under the Clean Air Act to advise the EPA Administrator on the review of the NAAQS. After reviewing the 2,000-page summary of the scientific research and extensive additional analysis by the EPA staff, the 23 ozone scientists unanimously concluded:

􀂃 There is no scientific justification to keep the current primary standard
􀂃 The rounding loophole must be eliminated
􀂃 The 8-hour ozone standard should be set in the range of 0.060 to 0.070 ppm
􀂃 The ozone health standard must explicitly include the “margin of safety” required by the Clean Air Act.

Why does the current standard need strengthening?

New epidemiological and clinical studies have shown that breathing ozone can harm health at concentrations lower than the current standard. This has prompted not only the CASAC, but the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Thoracic Society, the State of California, EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, the American Medical Association and others to recommend much stricter ozone standards.

• Clinical studies of healthy adults show decreased lung function, increased respiratory symptoms, inflammation, and increased susceptibility to respiratory infection at the current standard of 0.08 ppm, and studies showing adverse lung function effects and symptoms at 0.06 ppm.

• Breathing ozone can kill. Short-term increases in ozone were found to increase deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory causes in a large 14-year study in 95 U.S. cities. The relationship between mortality and ozone was evident even on days when pollution levels were below concentrations of 0.06 ppm.

• Due to a loophole, communities can round down their measurements and still meet the ozone standard. This means that some large metropolitan areas don’t have to clean up their air. Newer monitoring technology has eliminated the original reason for this practice.

What is the timetable for EPA action?

• August 30, 2007 -- public hearings in Philadelphia and Los Angeles
• September 5, 2007 -- public hearings in Atlanta, Chicago and Houston
• October 9, 2007 -- deadline for written comments
• March 12, 2008 -- EPA announces final standards

What does the American Lung Association Recommend that EPA do?

• The existing standard fails to protect public health, so EPA must strengthen it.
• EPA should set an 8-hour primary standard for ozone of 0.060 ppm to protect public health with a margin of safety.
• EPA must eliminate the rounding loophole.

Public Hearings:

Sign up to speak at the public hearings by contacting Tricia Crabtree of EPA at crabtree.tricia@epa.gov or 919-541-5688.

1. Philadelphia: Thursday, August 30, 2007. Crystal Ballroom, Radisson Plaza— Warwick Hotel Philadelphia, 1701 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103, Telephone: (215) 735–6000.

2. Los Angeles: Thursday, August 30, 2007. Garden West Room, Wilshire Grand Los Angeles, 930 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90017, Telephone: (213) 688–7777.

3. Atlanta: Wednesday, September 5, 2007. AFC Conference Center, 2nd Floor— Conference Room B, Atlanta Federal Center, 61 Forsyth Street, SW., Atlanta, GA 30303, Telephone: (404) 562–9077. [Bring a driver's license or other proof of ID.]

4. Chicago: Wednesday, September 5, 2007. Governor’s Suite, The Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago, 909 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60611, Telephone: (312) 943–7200.

5. Houston: Wednesday, September 5, 2007. Emerald Rooms 4 & 5, Houston Marriott West Loop by the Galleria, 1750 West Loop South, Houston, Texas 77027, Telephone: (713) 960–0111.

Written Comments:

Send written comments to EPA by October 9, 2007 via email to: a-and-r-docket@epa.gov. Reference Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0172. Send copies to your elected officials and Members of Congress.

For More Information:

http://www.cleanairstandards.org/

http://epa.gov/air/ozonepollution/actions.html

Stricter US Refinery Emission Rules Not Needed - EPA

WASHINGTON - Health risks linked with toxic air pollution from crude oil refineries are "acceptably low" and don't justify tighter federal rules, the US Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.

The EPA was required to review its policy on refinery pollutants by a settlement reached in 2006 with environmental groups like the Sierra Club, who had sued the agency in 2005 for missing a 2003 deadline for issuing its review.

In a policy statement, the EPA declined to update refinery emission rules it issued in 1995 because "the risks to human health and the environment are low enough that no further controls are warranted."

Environmental groups said the rules would put the 90 million Americans who live within 30 miles of an oil refinery at increased risk of cancer and other health hazards due to higher exposure to chemicals like naphthalene, toluene and hexane, which the EPA defines as "hazardous air pollutants."

The lifetime cancer risk from exposure to refinery emissions from the proposal - 70 per one million -- is 70 times higher than federal limits, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"We will strongly oppose the Bush administration EPA's do-nothing approach to cancer-causing pollution from oil refineries and urge them to require clean-up measures that will protect the public," said John Walke, an attorney at the environmental group.

The Sierra Club said the EPA was ignoring improvements in emission-reduction equipment since the EPA issued its rules in 1995 to comply with the Clean Air Act.

"The scientific evidence shows that these standards are not protective of public health as required under the Clean Air Act," said Alice McKeown at the Sierra Club.

The EPA said the 1995 standards have reduced emissions from refineries nationwide by about 53,000 tons per year.

The rules were a subject of an Aug. 2 meeting at the White House Office of Management and Budget, which included industry representatives from the American Petroleum Institute, American Chemistry Council and the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

"We appreciate the collaborative effort with the EPA to ensure that the risk information reviewed was accurate," said Bill Holbrook, a spokesman for the refinery group, which lobbies for big US refiners like Valero Energy Corp.

EPA said it could still require reductions from storage vessels and wastewater treatment plants at refineries, which could reduce toxic air emissions at 153 facilities by up to 4,600 tons per year.

The agency action is the end result of a risk-analysis process the EPA must conduct on refinery emissions every eight years to comply with the Clean Air Act.

The EPA is still weighing separate but related rules proposed in April to expand pollution controls on the nation's aging oil refineries, forcing companies to install emission-reduction equipment if they build or expand.

The EPA has also issued rules governing the amount of cancer-causing benzene in gasoline.

Story by Chris Baltimore
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE