Report Bespeaks an "Air of Injustice"

Four social-justice organizations recently pooled their efforts to author a report, released in October, titled “Air of Injustice: African Americans & Power Plant Pollution.” The study, a sobering crash course in environmental justice, explains health threats associated with coal-fired power plants, lays out why people of color are disproportionately burdened by their emissions, and offers a few recommendations for legislative action.

Some 70% of African Americans live in counties that violate federal air pollution standards, compared to only half of the white population. Sixty-eight percent of African Americans live within 30 miles (50 km) of a coal-fired power plant, compared to 56% of Caucasians. African Americans wind up in the emergency room for asthma attacks three times as often—and are hospitalized for asthma more than three times as often—as Caucasians. Largely because they are concentrated in urban areas, which average 10°F (6°C) warmer than surrounding areas, people of color are twice as likely to die during heat waves, and they are disproportionately threatened by localized warming trends associated with global climate change.

The authors of the report call for new legislation addressing nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide, and mercury, all of which are emitted by coal-fired power plants. They also plead for protection of the New Source Review provision of the Clean Air Act. Although old plants were grandfathered into the Clean Air Act over three decades ago, this provision ensures compliance with emission standards when companies upgrade equipment. (The Bush Administration relaxed the New Source Review significantly on December 31, prompting the attorneys general of nine northeastern states to file a suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.)