New Jersey has a particular interest in supporting tougher standards on smog and soot particles, since it contends that prevailing winds carry pollution from power plants in the Midwest to the Northeast and contribute to dirty, unhealthy air in this region. New Jersey environmental and health officials believe the EPA acted properly in cracking down on the Midwestern sources of pollution that endanger the health of residents in other states. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Trucking Associations, and the National Association of Manufacturers are among the industry groups challenging the EPA and saying cost should be a factor in setting clean-air standards. They say the equipment needed by industry to reduce smog and airborne particles is too expensive and the standards too rigorous. But for decades, federal environmental protections have been based on the cost in illness and death, not the cost to polluters.
Clean air saves lives.
The EPA permits state officials to consider the cost to industry in devising realistic plans for meeting federal pollution-reduction targets. But changing federal clean-air priorities would be dangerous, since industries would almost always contend that the cost of pollution prevention or cleanup was too great.