Association of temporary Environmental Protection Agency regulation suspension with industrial economic viability and local air quality in California, United States

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - 2021
Emily Chang1, Kenneth Zhang2, Margaret Paczkowski3, Sara Kohler4, Marco Ribeiro5
1Math, Engineering, and Science Academy, Albemarle High School, Charlottesville, USA
2Ancaster High School, Ancaster, Canada
3Albemarle High School, Charlottesville, USA
4Waseca Senior and Junior High School, Waseca, USA
5Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

Tóm tắt

This study seeks to answer two questions about the impacts of the 2020 Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement regulation rollbacks: is this suspension bolstering the economic viability of industries as oil and manufacturing executives claim they will and are these regulations upholding the agency’s mission of protecting the environment? To answer the former question, we utilized 6 months of state employment level data from California, United States, as a method of gauging the economic health of agency-regulated industries. We implemented a machine learning model to predict weekly employment data and a t-test to indicate any significant changes in employment. We found that, following California's state-issued stay-at-home order and the agency’s regulation suspension, oil and certain manufacturing industries had statistically significant lower employment values. To answer the latter question, we used 10 years of PM2.5 levels in California, United States, as a metric for local air quality and treatment–control county pairs to isolate the impact of regulation rollbacks from the impacts of the state lockdown. Using the agency’s data, we performed a t-test to determine whether treatment–control county pairs experienced a significant change in PM2.5 levels. Even with the statewide lockdown—a measure we hypothesized would correlate with decreased mobility and pollution levels—in place, counties with oil refineries experienced the same air pollution levels when compared to historical data averaged from the years 2009 to 2019. In contrast to the expectation that the suspension would improve the financial health of the oil and manufacturing industry, we can conclude that these industries are not witnessing economic growth with the suspension and state shutdown in place. Additionally, counties with oil refineries could be taking advantage of these rollbacks to continue emitting the same amount of PM2.5, in spite of state lockdowns. For these reasons, we ask international policymakers to reconsider the suspension of enforcement regulations as these actions do not fulfill their initial expectations. We recommend the creation and maintenance of pollution control and prevention programs that develop emission baselines, mandate the construction of pollution databases, and update records of pollution emissions.

Từ khóa


Tài liệu tham khảo

American Lung Association Metropolitan Statistical Rankings (2020) USA. http://www.stateoftheair.org/city-rankings/msas/. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

BEA GDP by State (2020) USA. https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-state. Accessed 20 Aug 2020

Bega S (2020) Government "locks" SA into deadly air pollution amid Covid-19 pandemic. Independent Online

Bodine S (2020) COVID-19 implications for EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program. In: EPA, Washington DC (in press)

Bourzac K (2020) COVID-19 lockdowns had strange effects on air pollution across the globe. Chemical and Engineering News ChemRxiv: In Preprint

Business & Human Rights Resource Center (2020) USA: Environmental Protection Agency relaxes enforcement of environmental regulations & fines on companies amid coronavirus. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/usa-environmental-protection-agency-relaxes-enforcement-of-environmental-regulations-fines-on-companies-amid-coronavirus. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

California Demographics: California Counties by Population (2020) USA, California. https://www.california-demographics.com/counties_by_population. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

California Petroleum Statistics Weekly Fuels Watch Report (2020) USA. https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/petroleum_data/fuels_watch/index_cms.html. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Census Bureau Economic Statistics Manufacturing Snapshot (2020) USA, California. https://www.census.gov/manufacturing/mfgstat/pdfs/CAManufacturing-snapshot.pdf. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Center For Construction Research and Training (2017) USA. https://www.cpwr.com/research/data-center/the-construction-chart-book/chart-book-6th-edition-employment-and-income-temporary-workers-in-construction-and-other-industries/. Accessed 20 Aug 2020

Conservation International (2021) Global conservation rollbacks tracker. In: Conservation international https://www.conservation.org/projects/global-conservation-rollbacks-tracker Accessed 11 Mar 2021

DataUSA (2020) USA. https://datausa.io/profile/geo/united-states. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Davenport C (2020) ‘Unbelievable’ timing. In: New York Times (in press)

Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (2016) Public Health. https://laqm.defra.gov.uk/public-health/pm25.html. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

EIA (2020) USA. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/refining-crude-oil-inputs-and-outputs.php. Accessed 20 Aug 2020

EIA Independent Statistics and Analysis; Petroleum and Other Liquids (2020) USA. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_wpsup_k_w.htm. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Employment Development Department of CA (2020) USA. https://edd.ca.gov/. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

EPA (2020) EPA announces enforcement discretion policy for COVID-19 Pandemic. In: EPA news releases (in press)

EPA Outdoor Air Quality Data (2020) USA. https://www.epa.gov/outdoor-air-quality-data/download-daily-data. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

EPA Regulatory and Compliance Assistance by Sector (2020) USA. https://www.epa.gov/smartsectors/regulatory-and-compliance-assistance-sector. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

ESA (2020) Coronavirus Lockdown leading to drop in pollution levels across Europe In: European Space Agency. Europe (in press)

Furhmann R (2020) Okun’s Law: economics and unemployment. In: Investopedia. USA

Ganguly T, Selvaraj K, Guttikunda S (2020) National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) for Indian cities: review and outlook of clean air action plans. Atmos Environ 8:100096

Huang F et al (2015) PM25 spatiotemporal variations and the relationship with meteorological factors during 2013–2014 in Beijing China. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141642.2020

Huiwen N (2019) What Psi and Pm 2.5 tell you about air quality. In: The straits times. Singapore (In Press)

Jordan P (2020) Fossil fuel employment initial impacts from the COVID-19 economic crisis, March–July 2020. Memorandum

La Monica M (2020) Rolling back Canadian environmental regulations during coronavirus is short-sighted. The Conversation

Lavelle et al. (2020) Environmental laws is a lifeline to the oil industry. In: inside climate news. Online (in press)

Le T, Wang Y, Liu L et al (2020) Unexpected air pollution with marked emission reductions during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. Science 369(6504):702–706

Machiarolla F, Wheeler A (2020) API letter on policy, economics, and public affairs. Accessed 20 Aug 2020

Myllyvirta L (2020) Analysis: Coronavirus temporarily reduced China’s CO2 Emissions by a Quarter. In:CarbonBrief. (in press)

NASA (2020) Environmental rollbacks. In: NASA. (in press)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2020) Clearing the air on weather quality. https://www.weather.gov/wrn/summer-article-clearing-the-air#:~:text=The%20weather%20can%20have%20a,depths%20all%20affect%20pollutant%20concentrations. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Oil and Gas Journal (2001) Forecast and review. Oil Gas J 118(1) Online

Perisco C, Johnson K (2020) Deregulation in a time of pandemic: does pollution increase coronavirus cases or deaths?. IZA Institute of Labor Economics: DP No. 13231

Ramirez-Andreotta M (2019) Environmental justice. Environ Pollut Sci. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814719-1.00031-8

San Francisco Bay Region Report.(2018) California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment. https://barc.ca.gov/sites/default/files/20190116-sanfranciscobayarea.pdf. Accessed 20 Aug 2020

Seville L. Lehren R (2020) Trump administration relaxes regulations to fight coronavirus and also loosens environmental restrictions. In: NBC News. USA

Taddonio P (2020) Environmental rollbacks. In: PBS frontline. (in press)

Tavera Busso I, Mateos AC, Juncos LI, Canals N, Carreras HA (2018) Kidney damage induced by sub-chronic fine particulate matter exposure. Environ Int 121:635–642

United States Dept of Labor Unemployment Database (2020) USA. https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Wu, X. et al. (2020) COVID-19 PM2.5. https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/covid-pm. Accessed 1 Aug 2020

Zhang N et al (2018) Quantitative analysis between pm 2.5 concentration and factors on industry, energy, agriculture, and transportation. Sci Rep. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-27771-w

Zhou T, Hu Y, Wang Y, Sun C, Zhong Y, Liao J, Wang G (2019) Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) aggravates apoptosis of cigarette-inflamed bronchial epithelium in vivo and vitro. Environ Pollut 248:1–9

Thông tin
Thông tin xuất bản

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Thông tin tác giả