{"id":50308,"date":"2025-12-17T05:19:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T13:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/?post_type=from_the_experts&#038;p=50308"},"modified":"2026-01-02T09:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T17:33:10","slug":"breathing-the-consequences-epas-refusal-to-implement-strengthened-soot-standard-endangers-public-health","status":"publish","type":"from_the_experts","link":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/experts\/robyn-winz\/breathing-the-consequences-epas-refusal-to-implement-strengthened-soot-standard-endangers-public-health","title":{"rendered":"Breathing the Consequences: EPA&#8217;s Refusal to Implement Strengthened Soot Standard Endangers Public Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be working to set polluted areas on a path to clean air by February, a requirement of the strengthened 2024 soot standard, a rule to limit air pollution. However, the Trump administration seems to have taken very few, if any, of the legally required steps for implementing the standard. <a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/document\/assessing-2024-pm2-5-standard-implementation-so-far-whos-on-track-to-get-clean-air-and-whos-left-behind\">Check out our full assessment of the implementation.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>We looked to see where things stand with fully implementing it\u00a0and we found:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>75 million people, or 22% of\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. population, live in counties with air violating the standard;<\/li>\n<li>Unhealthy\u00a0levels of soot pollution\u00a0disproportionately affect people of color;\u00a0and<\/li>\n<li>Despite\u00a0air monitoring in many big cities\u00a0showing\u00a0unhealthy\u00a0air, when given the opportunity to weigh in on whether they should have to clean up their air to meet the standard, many states\u00a0failed to\u00a0recommend they do so.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now, the Trump\u00a0administration has\u00a0taken direct aim at the NAAQS\u00a0for soot\u00a0by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/press\/2025\/trumps-epa-abandons-defense-of-national-soot-standard-that-saves-lives\">asking a federal court to strike it down<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0Our analysis shows EPA is moving in the wrong direction. Implementing the\u00a02024\u00a0standard will save lives; abandoning it will cost them.<\/p>\n<p>Last year,\u00a0the\u00a0EPA\u00a0strengthened the\u00a0National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS)\u00a0for PM2.5, or soot,\u00a0in a rule meant to reduce the amount of\u00a0toxic\u00a0pollution in the air people breathe.<\/p>\n<p>Soot\u00a0pollution threatens people\u2019s health, causing cardiovascular, respiratory, and nervous system effects, as well as cancer. Congress enacted the NAAQS program as part of the Clean Air Act to deal with this problem.<\/p>\n<p>Polluters oppose the 2024 rule as\u00a0they&#8217;ve\u00a0opposed\u00a0previous\u00a0strengthening of the NAAQS, asserting that cleaning up\u00a0the air will slow economic growth\u00a0\u2014 a\u00a0claim\u00a0we&#8217;ve\u00a0debunked\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/experts\/seth-johnson\/chamber-of-commerces-dubious-analysis-of-clean-air-rules-is-wrong\">over<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/experts\/robyn-winz\/putting-industry-claims-to-rest-data-reveals-economic-success-amidst-clean-air-rules\">and<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/experts\/robyn-winz\/the-gridlock-scare-was-just-hot-air\">over<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Implementing NAAQS\u00a0allows states to\u00a0recommend to\u00a0EPA areas they think should be\u00a0determined\u00a0&#8220;nonattainment,&#8221; or not\u00a0meeting the standard and needing to be cleaned up. The law requires EPA to\u00a0finalize\u00a0designations of\u00a0nonattainment\u00a0for the 2024 rule\u00a0by Feb.\u00a06,\u00a02026.\u00a0After\u00a0the Trump EPA\u00a0failed to\u00a0publicize states&#8217; nonattainment recommendations,\u00a0Earthjustice\u00a0submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of Sierra Club\u00a0to obtain them.<\/p>\n<p>Some states have shown a willingness to address elevated\u00a0soot\u00a0levels through their designation recommendations while others\u00a0haven\u2019t.\u00a0Our\u00a0review of the\u00a0state\u00a0recommendations revealed that\u00a0only six states (Alaska, California, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania) think they should have to address unhealthy air within their borders.<\/p>\n<p>An\u00a0additional\u00a038 million people\u00a0reside\u00a0in counties\u00a0whose states (sixteen of them)\u00a0ignored monitoring data and did not put them up for nonattainment.<\/p>\n<p>Texas, which contains\u00a0nearly\u00a017\u00a0million people\u00a0residing in counties whose air does not meet the standard, went against the advice\u00a0of\u00a0the state&#8217;s own environmental agency and refused to recommend any areas as nonattainment. In doing so, the\u00a0governor of Texas failed to\u00a0reference the monitor data or provide any even remotely valid justification.<\/p>\n<p>The science has\u00a0established\u00a0that people of\u00a0color,\u00a0and especially Black people, face greater risks of\u00a0PM2.5-related health effects.<\/p>\n<p>People of color are disproportionately affected\u00a0by\u00a0soot\u00a0pollution.\u00a0Counties where monitoring shows unhealthy\u00a0air\u00a0overall are home to\u00a0a higher\u00a0proportion\u00a0of people of color\u00a0(45%)\u00a0than\u00a0the\u00a0U.S\u00a0as a whole\u00a0(61.4% v. 42.4%).\u00a0Those affected also disproportionately tend to be Hispanic: 19.8% of the U.S. identifies as Hispanic, but counties with monitor violations are 34.3% Hispanic\u00a0\u2014 a 73% difference. Additionally, counties where states\u00a0failed to\u00a0recommend a nonattainment designation\u00a0had\u00a0a larger\u00a0Black population\u00a0(18.3%) than counties where states did recommend nonattainment (10.3%).<\/p>\n<p>The Clean Air Act sets a schedule by which\u00a0states\u00a0and EPA jointly implement the 2024 standard. Yet the Trump administration seems to have taken very few,\u00a0if any,\u00a0of the legally\u00a0required steps toward implementation.<\/p>\n<p>If\u00a0EPA disagrees with any state recommendations, the agency may make modifications and then notify the relevant state with a 120-day letter.\u00a0Such letters would have been due Oct.9, 2025.\u00a0 EPA has not\u00a0publicly released\u00a0any 120-day\u00a0letters, and it also has not\u00a0opened\u00a0the customary public comment for interested parties to weigh in on the planned\u00a0area\u00a0designations.<\/p>\n<p>This paints a troubling picture \u2014 the Trump administration clearly has no plans of putting the 2024 standard in place.<\/p>\n<p>Yet air pollution remains a widespread problem with serious health impacts. Implementing the soot standard as directed by the Clean Air Act as Congress intended can go a long way to solving it. EPA has a large role to play: we must let the Trump administration know we are watching and that all people deserve the clean air promised to them by law. <a href=\"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/document\/epa-abandoning-its-defense-of-the-soot-standard-opposition-letter\">Read the letter that 106 groups signed opposing EPA&#8217;s move to abandon its defense of the soot standard.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A February 2026 deadline calls for EPA to address air pollution from soot, but it appears the agency has taken few steps, if any, to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47582,"template":"","tags":[144,123,157,260,147],"language":[179],"offices":[200],"cases":[594],"goals":[31],"ppma_author":[893],"class_list":["post-50308","from_the_experts","type-from_the_experts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-air","tag-clean-air-act","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-foia","tag-trump-administration","language-english","offices-washington-d-c-office","cases-air-toxics-pm2-5-standards","goals-air-and-water"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/from_the_experts\/50308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/from_the_experts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/from_the_experts"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50308"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=50308"},{"taxonomy":"offices","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/offices?post=50308"},{"taxonomy":"cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cases?post=50308"},{"taxonomy":"goals","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/goals?post=50308"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=50308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}