by Seth Oster

You may have seen some coverage of a speech Administrator Jackson made the other day at Howard University. If you have, you have probably seen some people reacting strongly to something they claim the Administrator said. The only problem is, she never said it.

How could someone react to something that was never said? Read Ken Ward’s blog at the Charleston Gazette to read what actually happened, and to experience a genuine “only in Washington” moment.

Seth Oster is the Associate Administrator for External Affairs and Environmental Education at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

In today’s LA Times, Administrator Jackson wrote about efforts in the House of Representatives to undermine critical health and environmental protections. In the op-ed “Too Dirty to Fail?” she says it is time once again for Americans to stand up for their right to clean air and clean water.

“Since the beginning of this year, Republicans in the House have averaged roughly a vote every day the chamber has been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our nation’s environmental laws,” wrote Administrator Jackson.

In recent weeks,  House Republicans using the economy as cover have accelerated efforts to give big polluters a pass from complying with health protections and to expose our communities to dangerous pollution.  The “Too Dirty to Fail” strategy uses today’s economic challenges as an excuse for removing vital health protections and entering our nation into what President Obama calls “a race to the bottom” for the weakest environmental protections.

“How we respond to this assault on our environmental and public health protections will mean the difference between sickness and health — in some cases, life and death — for hundreds of thousands of citizens,” the Administrator wrote in the piece.

Read Administrator Jackson’s op-ed “Too Dirty to fail?”

By Seth Oster

If you read the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday morning, you may have seen a story about how the EPA, in the face of industry pressure, plans to “ease” its Cross State Air Pollution Rule.

The problem is, that report is completely wrong about what is happening with the rule.

The Clean Air Act is a remarkable public health protection law, and one of the reasons it has worked so well for four decades is that it’s flexible enough to incorporate new and updated data — provided to EPA by states and industry — as we work to implement standards like the Cross State Air Pollution Rule. That rule, which will yield massive public health benefits by ensuring Americans don’t have to breathe in air pollution emitted in other states, was finalized back in July.

Whenever the EPA develops rules and safeguards under the Clean Air Act, we collect data from states and industries so we know how much of a given pollutant facilities are emitting, and work to determine how much that pollution can be cost-effectively reduced.

In some cases we receive additional information even after a rule is finalized — sometimes it is correcting or updating information initially provided by states or companies. As always, EPA carefully reviews such data and, where appropriate, may make technical adjustments to the relevant standard.

Here’s the bottom line, and what the Wall Street Journal missed in their story: any changes to the Cross State standard under such a scenario would have no impact on the health benefits we expect this rule to achieve.

Breathe easy. The EPA is not “easing” the standards of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule. We are doing what we always do under the Clean Air Act: taking steps to gather the best data and information, and moving forward with a commonsense standard based on everything we know.

Seth Oster is the Associate Administrator for External Affairs and Environmental Education at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This entry was previously posted on the official EPA blog Greenversations.

By Administrator Lisa P. Jackson

Hispanic Heritage Month is a time to reflect on the important role the environment plays in every community, and the important role every community should play in protecting our environment. The EPA has taken considerable steps to make sure all Americans have a voice in the conversation about the environmental and health issues facing them. Just this week we unveiled an environmental justice plan called EJ 2014, to outline our work in the years ahead. But our commitment to protecting the health of all Americans goes beyond the guidebook. The voices of Hispanic and other minority communities are part of every decision we make.

When we proposed the first-ever Mercury and Air Toxics Standards to cut harmful emissions from power plants, we were thinking about the nearly 2 million Hispanics across America who suffer from asthma. When we finalized the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule to cut pollution that can drift across state lines, we were thinking about the almost 30 million Latinos who live in places that don’t meet clean air standards. These two health protections are expected to save 50,000 lives and prevent more than 500,000 cases of asthma nationwide.

We were thinking about Hispanic communities who live along Los Angeles’ Compton Creek and New York’s Harlem River – near where I used to work as an EPA scientist – when we formed the Urban Waters Federal Partnership. And we thought about them again when we awarded $6.2 million to organizations across the country that train local residents and place them into good, green jobs cleaning up their communities.

We want to give Hispanics, and all Americans, the opportunity to transform these often over-polluted areas into healthier, stronger places to raise a family and grow a business – creating opportunities for more jobs in places where they can have the most impact.

When it comes to our future, we are also working on behalf of Hispanic communities. I think about the many young Latino students I met at St. Phillips College in San Antonio and the many others like them throughout the nation getting green jobs training. These students will be the engineers, the factory workers and the welders making our power plants cleaner with new pollution control technology. They’ll be the workers revitalizing our urban waters and communities. And they’ll be the ones making the solar panels and wind farms and biomass to power our nation into the future.

It is critical that Hispanic Americans have a voice in our conversation about the environmental and health issues that affect their communities. That is why this is the first in a series of posts celebrating Hispanic Heritage month. In the weeks ahead, we will hear the real stories of people at EPA and members of Hispanic communities who are lending their voices to the conversation on environmentalism. I am proud I’m proud to join them in celebrating another Hispanic Heritage month here at EPA, and in working to protect the health and environment for all Americans.