The EPA Dinosaur: Time to Put It Down

Of course, some dinosaurs are hard to kill, but EPA should be put out of our misery.  (That would have several other salutary effects--the enormous dinosaur-BS machine would stop.)

The EPA claims airborne fine particulate matter kills tens of thousands annually and that the prevention of those deaths will provide society $2 trillion annually in monetized health benefits by 2020.

(That's the EPA version of "Starve Granny and Kill the Ill" not to mention NASA's "Alien Invasion!!!" )

But we can debunk those claims with more than mere criticisms of EPA’s statistical malpractice and secret data. We have actual data that simply discredit the EPA’s claims.

....For three days [in 1948], an unusual and stifling temperature inversion trapped noxious fumes from local industry in Donora’s valley. By the time rain finally came to clear away the smog, thousands had been affected, hundreds had been sickened, and 20 elderly persons were dead. The Donora tragedy was a sentinel event on the path to the federal Clean Air Act that finally was enacted in 1963.

...The [US Public Health Service] report indicates that the death rates for the period 1945-48 for Donora and nearby Pittsburgh were 826 and 1,086 per 100,000 people, respectively.

Surprisingly, those mortality rates compare pretty well with the most recent mortality data for Allegheny County, Pa., home to both Donora and Pittsburgh.

(Next EPA suggestion:  vaporize Donora and Pittsburgh.  Save $30Trillion, not just $2Tn.!!!)

The Weather Bureau’s [1949] measurements of airborne particulate matter are astonishing and compelling. Of the 205 air samples taken at 12 stations during those 10 weeks in Donora, 54 percent exceeded 500 micrograms per cubic meter.  [This was 90 days after the inversion-event.]

While the other 46 percent of the readings were less than 500 micrograms per cubic meter, it’s likely that all of those were likely far greater than today’s EPA’s standard for maximum allowable fine particulate matter, which is 35 micrograms per cubic meter during a 24-hour period.

...So, although the air in Allegheny County is much cleaner than it was in the years following World War II, the mortality rate is about the same...

When we retire EPA, we can also give them kudos:  they have highlighted, addressed, and fixed some serious problems.  That's good!

But their time is over.