More Evidence of Air Pollution's Impact on Health, This Time Our Brains

New research links air pollution from fossil fuels like coal and oil - particularly from diesel engines - to dementia, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, as Aaron Reuben reports for Mother Jones:

Controlling for things like ethnicity, gender, income, education, and other possible environmental exposures (including cigarette smoke), elderly individuals living in areas with polluted air appear to lose their mental abilities faster, show more predementia symptoms (also known as mild cognitive impairment), and develop Alzheimer's disease at greater rates. Six years ago, researchers in Germany assessed the cognitive abilities of 399 elderly women who lived in the same place for more than 20 years. Regardless of her socioeconomic status, the closer a woman lived to a busy road, the authors reported, the greater the chance that she would have mild cognitive impairment.

Four years ago, researchers from Harvard linked estimates of higher daily exposure to black carbon, a solid type of fine particulate matter, to lower cognitive ability in older men in Boston. In a larger, national study tracking the mental status of more than 19,000 retired nurses over several years, researchers connected the rate of mental decline in women 70 and older to their exposure to coarse- and fine-particle pollution and found that those exposed to more particles lost their mental abilities at a faster rate. In a group of 95,690 elderly Taiwanese, researchers this year found that a slight increase in fine-particle exposure over 10 years led to a 138 percent increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. A smaller, more recent study published in the Annals of Neurology followed 1,403 elderly women without dementia. Scientists found that exposure to air pollution over time to led to a major decrease in the subjects' white matter, a part of the brain essential for cognition. [...]

And there is growing evidence that particle pollution's assault on the mind is not limited to elderly brains. Researchers in Mexico City, which still has some of the worst urban air on the planet, have found signs of advanced brain damage in children as young as six and seven years old: overactive immune cells, degraded white matter, and damaged vasculature typically seen only in older brains. In one autopsy study comparing children raised in Mexico City with their counterparts in less polluted parts of the country, half the Mexico City children had notable aggregations of a protein called amyloid beta—which is strongly associated with Alzheimer's—grouped in clumps across their brains. In the children from less polluted areas, there were none.

If all costs remained the same, and global warming were not occuring, it would still be worth it strictly from a public health perspective to end our use of fossil fuels. From lead damaging our children's brains to air pollution's link to autism to mercury's link to ADHD, the toll of coal and oil pollution is incalculably immense.

But the climate crisis is already well underway and the costs of inaction are staggering, which makes the decision a complete slam dunk. That our elected officials aren't moving us away from polluting energy as quickly as possible shows that there are truly enormous amounts of money to be made from keeping us hooked on fossil fuels and maintaining our energy status quo.

A New Surprise Benefit of Cutting Lead Pollution

Studies have shown a strong connection between the phase-out of lead in gasoline starting in the mid-1970s and a plunge in violent crime in the following decades. As Kevin Drum reports at Mother Jones, a new study is connecting lower levels of childhood lead exposure to a later drop in the teen pregnancy rate:

For years conservatives bemoaned the problem of risky and violent behavior among children and teens of the post-60s era, mostly blaming it on the breakdown of the family and a general decline in discipline. Liberals tended to take this less seriously, and in any case mostly blamed it on societal problems. In the end, though, it turned out that conservatives were right. It wasn't just a bunch of oldsters complaining about the kids these days. Crime was up, drug use was up, and teen pregnancy was up. It was a genuine phenomenon and a genuine problem.

But liberals were right that it wasn't related to the disintegration of the family or lower rates of churchgoing or any of that. After all, families didn't suddenly start getting back together in the 90s and churchgoing didn't suddenly rise. But teenage crime, drug use, and pregnancy rates all went down. And down. And down.

Most likely, there was a real problem, but it was a problem no one had a clue about. We were poisoning our children with a well-known neurotoxin, and this toxin lowered their IQs, made them into fidgety kids, wrecked their educations, and then turned them into juvenile delinquents, teen mothers, and violent criminals. When we got rid of the toxin, all of these problems magically started to decline.

Today, we're debating whether to cut the toxic heavy metal and carbon pollution from coal by shutting down the oldest, dirtiest coal-fired power plants. But the benefits aren't hidden - we know coal kills thousands of people every year and causes thousands more asthma attacks in children.

Electricity rates and jobs are obviously important, but why do reporters talk almost exclusively about those, and hardly at all about these very real impacts on our lives? When did human health become a sidebar story?

Journalists Are Only Against Some Cancer

Countless "objective" journalists advocate for mammograms to stop breast cancer.

Katie Couric advocates for colonoscopies to stop colon cancer.

Air pollution from burning fossil fuels like coal and oil definitively & scientifically causes lung cancer. Where are the journalists advocating for Environmental Protection Agency limits on air pollution?

Why are the first two OK, but not the third? Or is advocacy for stopping cancer only OK if there's no big money starting the cancer?

UPDATE: A Facebook commenter points out that media's unwritten rules sometimes allow an advocacy exception when the journalist is personally affected, i.e. Megyn Kelly suddenly caring about maternity leave.

How Coal Power is Making Us Sick

Learn more in this new report from the Health and Environment Alliance.

Possible Autism Link Yet Another Reason to Limit Air Pollution

Six in ten Americans support stronger limits on soot pollution from industrial facilities, according to a new poll conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for the American Lung Association. And the support from the core constituencies that swung the 2012 election to Democrats - young, women, black & Latino voters - is even stronger.

As is the case with lead and mercury pollution, the more we research air pollution, the more we find out it has much great impacts than we first thought:

Researchers from the University of California Keck School of Medicine examined traffic-related air pollution levels in two groups of children: 279 with autism and 245 without. The study found that autistic children and their mothers were twice as likely to live in high-pollution areas during pregnancy and the first year of life.

One in 88 children in the U.S. is affected by autism.

Researchers have been looking at a potential link between air pollution and the enigmatic developmental disorder for three years. Fine particle pollution and nitrogen dioxide — two of the leading pollutants emitted by internal combustion vehicles — affect the behavior of certain genes in the early stages of development. One of these genes is known to be less active in children with autism, according to a report on the study published on WebMD.

Tell President Obama you support tougher limits on soot pollution.

We Love Our Children Enough to Put Them on the Shittiest Buses Possible

Two blocks up the hill - that's how far a New Bedford school bus was, yet a cloud of diesel exhaust still hung on my street in its wake, leaving the air smelling like a tire fire as I went out to get the morning paper.

All across America each morning, parents who won't let their children out of the house unsupervised because it's "not safe" are happy to put them on some of the most polluting vehicles in America:

According to a study carried out in the Los Angeles area, the levels of diesel exhaust on a bus can be four times as high as those found in passenger cars driving just ahead of the bus. And the concentration of diesel fumes found inside the buses were more than eight times that of the average amount found in California’s outdoor air.

And this:

Children on diesel buses breathe in more soot than everyone else in the surrounding metropolitan area combined, and up to 70 percent more soot than the average commuter. … Kids not only face this increased risk from exposure; they are also more vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health showed that young children’s lungs will get two and half times the dose of soot particles as an adult’s lungs.

Check out the above link from Get Energy Smart Now's Adam Siegel to learn much more about why investing in hybrid school buses would make our children healthier, save taxpayers money in the long run, and curb climate pollution. And make oil executives and Saudi oil barons angry! Good kids win, bad guys lose.

New Poll: Only 1 in 7 Americans Support Inhofe Polluter Bill; Majorities Want EPA Mercury & Carbon Action

UPDATE 11:58am: Warner & Webb voted with Sen. Inhofe. Disgraceful. Fortunately, 53 other senators stood up for public health & killed the bill.

Not only is Sen. Jim Inhofe's bill to block new Environmental Protection Agency mercury standards horrible public policy that would kill a lot of people, a new United Technologies/National Journal poll finds it's wildly unpopular with voters:

A new United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll finds that 57 percent of the public supports a recently-finalized Environmental Protection Agency rule controlling mercury and other toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants as long as companies are given more time to comply.

The poll found that a similar majority—55 percent—thinks EPA should be able to control greenhouse-gas emissions that most scientists agree cause climate change. Just slightly more than one-third of the public—36 percent—said Congress should stop EPA from such regulation. A federal court is expected to rule soon on whether the agency is within its right to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

The poll’s findings put a majority of Americans out of step with Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ranking member James Inhofe, R-Okla., who is sponsoring a measure coming up for a vote on Wednesday that would nullify EPA’s mercury rule entirely. Just under 20 percent of survey respondents said the Senate should vote to uphold the rule as it stands now, while only 14 percent said the Senate should vote to get rid of it. 

Again, I'd ask Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb: This is a hard call? Really? Which part is a tough call, the part where it lets corporate polluters profit by treating America's air and water like an open sewer? The part where people with asthma die? Or the part where it's incredibly bad politics?

Photo courtesy Flickr's Symbiosis

Warner & Webb Undecided on Whether to Let Polluters Keep Killing People

Today, the Senate is expected to vote on a bill by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to block the Environmental Protection Agency from setting science-based standards for mercury and other toxic pollutants. That Sen. Mark Warner & Sen. Jim Webb are considered "swing votes" by the coal mining industry is a sad statement about how the Democratic Party of Virginia remains pathetically in the back pocket of the coal industry.

Pollution from coal-fired power plants is a major cause of asthma attacks. Historically in America, rather than address those causes, we enjoy "cheap" electricity, then let people get sick - 20 million Americans a year have asthma attacks, with 2 million of those being treated in the emergency room, and 5,000 people a year dying. Economists call those people externalities - costs that don't show up on your power bill.

Thirteen years after public health and conservation groups started pushing the Clinton administration to strengthen clean air standards, the Obama administration finally delivered last December, unveiling new rules. But electric utilities and their allies, led by Sen. Inhofe, are trying to block the rule, giving $9,313,822 to Congress so far this cycle alone (61% to Republicans).

Virginia parents, despite their inability to write the large checks demanded in this post-Citizens United world, are fighting back:

Kim Meltzer, a Charlottesville mother who has rushed her two-year-old son to the ER because of asthma attacks, hopes politicians will do the right thing for those who don't have a voice in Washington. "I'd like the environment to be one in which my children and all people can live in and not worry about breathing toxic fumes."

What's most pathetic about Sen. Inhofe's effort is that coal's enemy isn't clean air regulations - it's the rising cost of digging the last bits of coal out of the ground compared to natural gas that's cheap now and renewables that are falling in price every day. "Even without the EPA rules, coal is not really competitive," says one energy industry analyst.

And for all the squawking in Congress about creating jobs, cutting mercury and other toxic pollution does create jobs:

The EPA has estimated that as many as 15,000 construction jobs lasting several years will result.

[NRDC Clean Air Director John] Walke says this is a win-win for the American economy and the health of the American people. "It's finally time to clean up these dirty power plants, they are being given plenty of time to clean up, and it's a tremendous health gain for Americans that we finally clean up these dirty plants."

And what about coal? Virginia just invested billions in a new coal-fired power plant in Wise County ... which a Virginia State Corporation Commission analyst has testified (PDF) that, because the higher rates needed to pay for it, will actually result in a net loss to Virginia of 1,474 jobs.

And yet Senators Warner & Webb have to be talked into standing with public health and against giving coal plants a free pass to foul our air with mercury, sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, and other toxic pollutants. Shameful.

New Ad Asks Virginians to Speak Up for Industrial Carbon Pollution Limits

On the same day a new poll shows supermajorities of small business owners support clean energy & limits on industrial carbon pollution, a new television ad is asking Virginians to stand up for clean air:

The ad focuses attention on a recent Department of Labor study showing that transitioning away from dirty sources of energy to clean technology development and innovation in turn creates jobs. In fact, the Labor Department study concludes that the transition to cleaner energy and technology has already created 3.1 million jobs (Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2012).

"Clean air protects health and enhances our economy," said Martin Hayden, vice president of policy & legislation at Earthjustice. "According to a Brookings Institute study, between 2003 and 2010, the clean tech sector outperformed the national economy as a whole, expanding 3.4 percent annually. Letting the EPA enforce the Clean Air Act and limit dangerous air pollution spewing from smokestacks will not only make it easier for Americans to breathe, it will also boost the clean technology sector and help create more jobs."

"Whether aimed at toxic air pollutants like mercury or dangerous carbon pollution, there are multiple benefits from job-creating clean air standards," said Joe Mendelson, global warming policy director at the National Wildlife Federation, the sister organization of NWF Action Fund. "EPA air standards that clean up power plants are good for our economy, the health of our families and communities, addressing climate change and for protecting wildlife and their habitat."

Over 800,000 Americans have already told the Environmental Protection Agency that they support the new rules. It only takes a minute, so please speak up for clean air right now.

Ask the Green Miles: Which Fish are Most Sustainable & Have Least Mercury?

First, the short answer: Check out the FDA's advisory on mercury in fish & shellfish, then cross-reference the FDA's chart of typical mercury content in fish with your local Seafood Watch pocket guide.

But in the big picture, if you're concerned about mercury in your fish, you should be thrilled about the Obama administration's new limits on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. They're often wrongly treated as separate concerns - coal plants pollute our air & water, and there's mercury in fish. That's why reporters let Republicans like Mitt Romney (sometimes joined by coal-state Democrats) bash Environmental Protection Agency regulations on coal-fired power plants in the abstract without connecting the dots to the 1 in 7 newborns at risk for brain damage and learning difficulties due to mercury exposure in the womb.

Grist's David Roberts digs deeper into why the new mercury rules are a BFD.

Virginian-Pilot Calls Out "Norfolk's Coal Embarrassment"

Norfolk City Council has refused to take a firm stand against a proposed new coal-fired power plant that would cause dozens of premature deaths in the city each year:

A representative from Norfolk Southern - which transports lots of coal - argued that it would be premature for the council to vote on the resolution so early in the project's permitting process. He's wrong. The Dendron power plant, as planned right now, would cause damage downwind. No amount of time will change that.

Norfolk City Council's interests lie in protecting its people, its water supply, its food sources from farms throughout the region. The potential for huge amounts of new pollution, for tons of carcinogens to infiltrate our environment through smog, wind and rain, calls for adamant, continuing, loud opposition.

Norfolk instead got embarrassment and questions about the allegiances of city leaders.

The new plant doesn't just face serious public health questions - it also faces major economic ones. At a time when natural gas is far cheaper & wind is creating far more jobs, why should we invest $6 billion in Virginia ratepayer money in a polluting coal-fired power plant?

Groups Push Virginia Politicians to Support Clean Air

The Green Miles had asthma as a kid and until recently had always thought of it strictly as a personal health problem ... but I grew up in Boston, not only home to hundreds of thousands of cars, but destination for much of the air pollution produced by coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. How much did that air pollution exacerbate my breathing problems?

And you have to remember how much better air quality in cities like Boston is today than it was in the early 1980s, thanks to increased vehicle fuel efficiency standards, the 1990 Clean Air Act update, and other efforts. According to the American Lung Association, many cities are reporting their best-ever air quality.

Now a coalition of public health and environmental groups including the League of Conservation Voters and Mom's Clean Air Force is asking, what if more politicians knew what it was like to suffer from asthma made worse by air pollution? Tell your members of Congress you support the Environmental Protection Agency's new industrial air pollution standards.

This is How You Fight Back Against GOP Attacks on Clean Air

You don't need to have a Ph.D. to talk about why we need clean air and climate action. You don't need to have a mastery of facts & figures.

In fact, you're your own target audience. You need to be able to talk about it in a way that people who don't know facts & figures either can understand. Don't worry about framing the issue or dazzling with statistics - tell a story.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) had the quote of the year back in January, summing up the fight against polluter-funded GOP attacks on the Clean Air Act: "There is a case to be made that, in the contest between corporate profits and children's lungs, someone should be standing up for children's lungs."

Last week on the Senate floor, Sen. Whitehouse expanded on the case with a series of simple yet vivid examples:


If you don't have time to watch the clip, check out the full transcript at ClimateProgress.org.

Regulating Dirty Coal Will Kill Human-Killing Jobs

There's been a wave of closures recently at the oldest, dirtiest, most-polluting coal-fired power plants, including GenOn's Potomac River Generating Station in Alexandria and Dominion's Chesapeake Energy Center and Yorktown Power Plant.

At Grist.org, David Roberts says we should be celebrating the death of these power plants that we've been subsidizing at the cost of asthma attacks and heart failure:

The key thing to remember is that these are some of the most heavily subsidized jobs in the U.S. economy. They are subsidized at a level that makes anything Obama did with the stimulus bill look like pocket change.

Why is that so? Well, it's widely known by now, at least in economist circles, that the coal power industry grossly underpays for the damages it does. That's the unanimous conclusion of a flurry of new research that's been done on the question: see, e.g., the National Research Council (NRC), Harvard Medical School's Paul Epstein, or last week's bombshell from Yale's William Nordhaus and colleagues, which found that coal-fired power plants do 21 cents of unpaid damages for every single kilowatt hour of power they produce. Economists call these costs "externalities," but really they amount to subsidies -- the public is paying these costs on the coal companies' behalf. [...]

And these subsidies are not investments that pay back over time, like loans to innovative renewable energy firms. These subsidies come in the form of babies with birth defects, asthmatic kids, and adults with respiratory and heart ailments. These subsidies pay negative returns. They subtract value. All in the name of propping up a dying industry.

The Alexandria plant alone is estimated to kill 37 people & sicken hundreds of others every single year.

But the coal industry keeps looking for someone to blame, and it's not just on the human costs of its pollution. As Coal Tattoo's Ken Ward Jr. reports, coal companies are desperately trying to pin falling Appalachian production on regulations & conservationists. That's instead of accepting the simple fact that the low-hanging fruit of Appalachian coal has long since been picked and what little is left is getting more & more expensive to blast out. For today's coal industry, reality is hard to face.

Will Rep. Wolf Side With Tea Party or With Children's Lungs?

Just got this email from a local conservationist:

Right now there is a bill in the House of Representatives to stop that rule from moving forward: the “Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act” (H.R. 2401). The bill blocks and indefinitely delays two of the most important clean air regulations of the past few decades – including the mercury and air toxics standards that we all advocated so hard for.

Based on our outreach here in DC, we believe that Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA 10) is yet undedicated on whether he’ll vote “party-line” in support of this bill, or stand up for public health and wildlife and oppose the TRAIN Act.

Which way will Rep. Wolf vote today? If you live in Virginia's 10th Congressional district, please call Rep. Wolf's DC office at 202-225-5136 right now. If you can't get through to Rep. Wolf's DC office, call his Herndon office at 800-945-9653 or his Winchester office at 800-850-3463.

Susan Collins Only In Favor of Saving Lives If Anderson Cooper's Black T-Shirt is Watching

The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed limits on pollution from industrial boilers and process heaters would annually prevent 6,600 premature deaths, more than 4,000 non-fatal heart attacks, more than 1,600 cases of acute bronchitis, and more than 313,000 missed work and school days. But Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) wants to block those protections, citing an electric utility consulting group's warning that retrofitting their operations to stop killing so many people would surely cost jobs.

I know it's not surprising that Republicans - even ones the media likes to call "moderates" like Sen. Collins - are trying to take us back to the Bush-Cheney era playbook of letting the free market make the rules. You know, the strategy that gave us the worst job creation results on record.

But still, this sentence stood out:

Collins noted that her bill would exempt some regulations needed to deal with emergencies, such as threats to public health and safety.

So Sen. Collins is fine with 6,600 Americans dying prematurely as long as they do it in the quiet corner of a hospital out of the public eye. But if it's going to be a big news story, suddenly every life is precious.

Dirty Distinction: Virginia 14th on Power Plant Pollution List

Virginia comes in 14th-worst on a new ranking of states with the most toxic air pollution from coal- and oil-fired power plants, according to an analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council, released jointly with Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR). Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida have the highest levels of toxic power plant pollution.

The Environmental Protection Agency is planning new rules to limit the toxic pollutants such as mercury, but those limits are coming under attack from friends of coal & oil in Congress:

The EPA estimates that the reductions of toxic pollution required by the pending “Mercury and Air Toxics” standard would save as many as 17,000 lives every year by 2015 and prevent up to 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms. The safeguards also would avoid more than 12,000 emergency room and hospital visits and prevent 850,000 lost work days every year. These standards are expected to be finalized in November; the agency is taking public comments on its proposal until Aug. 4, 2011.

“Coal pollution is killing Americans,” said Lynn Ringenberg, MD, of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “It is America’s biggest source of toxic air pollution. Air toxics from coal-fired power plants cause cancer, birth defects, and respiratory illness. Just one of those air toxics, mercury, damages the developing brains of fetuses, infants, and small children. It robs our children of healthy neurological development and native intelligence.

“Poisonous power threatens the health of our kids and families. As a pediatrician for over thirty years, I urge us absolutely to support the EPA’s efforts to reduce the health threat from coal.”

Tell your members of Congress & the EPA to back strong mercury pollution standards.

Polluting Your Brain: Science Deniers Say Mercury's Just Dandy

Famed science deniers Willie Soon and Paul Driessen, both of whom have worked for groups that accept cash from Exxon Mobil to pretend global warming isn't happening, have a new crusade: Mercury denial!

That's right: They have an op-ed in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal claiming that breathing toxic mercury isn't bad for you.

Willie Soon, astronomer. And Paul Driessen, lobbyist with a degree in geology. Expertise in public health? Limited. Willingness to take cash from the coal polluters that pump tons of mercury into our air every year? Extensive.

What's that? You want to know what actual medical researchers have to say about the subject? Fine, have it your way:

For fetuses, infants, and children, the primary health effect of methylmercury is impaired neurological development. Methylmercury exposure in the womb, which can result from a mother's consumption of fish and shellfish that contain methylmercury, can adversely affect a baby's growing brain and nervous system. Impacts on cognitive thinking, memory, attention, language, and fine motor and visual spatial skills have been seen in children exposed to methylmercury in the womb. Recent human biological monitoring by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999 and 2000 shows that most people have blood mercury levels below a level associated with possible health effects. More recent data from the CDC support this general finding.

Outbreaks of methylmercury poisonings have made it clear that adults, children, and developing fetuses are at risk from ingestion exposure to methylmercury. During these poisoning outbreaks some mothers with no symptoms of nervous system damage gave birth to infants with severe disabilities, it became clear that the developing nervous system of the fetus may be more vulnerable to methylmercury than is the adult nervous system. [...]

In addition to the subtle impairments noted above, symptoms of methylmercury poisoning may include; impairment of the peripheral vision; disturbances in sensations ("pins and needles" feelings, usually in the hands, feet, and around the mouth); lack of coordination of movements; impairment of speech, hearing, walking; and muscle weakness.

The Environmental Protection Agency is acting right now to limit mercury pollution. Please take a moment to tell the EPA you support its efforts.

Why Does Arlington Fight New Highways?

Because Arlington (and DC, Fairfax, etc.) continues to get failing grades for air quality that can be linked directly to excessive pollution from cars, SUVs & trucks.

The American Lung Association gave DC and every Virginia suburb an F for ozone pollution. What effects can humans expect from ozone and other smog-inducing photochemical pollutants?

Ground-level ozone, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide are especially harmful for senior citizens, children, and people with heart and lung conditions such as emphysema, bronchitis, and asthma. It can inflame breathing passages, decrease the lungs' working capacity, cause shortness of breath, pain when inhaling deeply, wheezing, and coughing. It can cause eye and nose irritation and it dries out the protective membranes of the nose and throat and interferes with the body's ability to fight infection, increasing susceptibility to illness. Hospital admissions and respiratory deaths often increase during periods when ozone levels are high.

DC and Loudoun got Ds for particle pollution, while Arlington and Fairfax got Cs. And what does that mean for your health?

[Particulate] pollution is estimated to cause 22,000-52,000 deaths per year in the United States (from 2000) and 200,000 deaths per year in Europe. The effects of inhaling particulate matter that have been widely studied in humans and animals now include asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular issues, and premature death.

Why does Arlington fight new highways and distant coal plants? To steal a line from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, in the contest between pollution and children's lungs, there's a case to be made that someone should be standing up for children's lungs.

Of course, debates about air quality will be nothing more than hot air if Republicans on Capitol Hill succeed in gutting the Clean Air Act. Democrats and several moderate Republicans in the Senate have already beaten back several attacks, but please make sure your members of Congress know you support strong clean air protections.

Front Group, Fake Members, Polluter Money Target Virginia's Air

Who's attacking the Clean Air Act in Virginia? Why are they hiding behind a front group that was just created two weeks ago? A little detective work turns up an unsurprising answer -- but one with some comically bad cover-up work.

Ads began running in Virginia & several other states today attacking the Environmental Protection Agency for trying to do its job & protect our air as mandated by the Clean Air Act -- passed by a Democratic Congress, signed by a Republican president, and approved by a conservative Supreme Court.

The announcer in the ad never says who paid for them. In tiny, semi-transparent type at the bottom of the ad are the words "Paid for by the Coalition for American Jobs." If that name sounds about as credible as the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem & Howe, you're on the right track.

The next major red flag: The "Coalition" won't say who's in the coalition. Its website just makes a vague reference to "businesses, industries and others." And its "resource" page is completely blank. I showed the link to my dad who laughed, "All out! Sorry, folks! We expect another shipment in on Thursday!" At this point, I'm imagining the offices of the "Coalition" are in the back of a pickup truck with the engine running.

Who's the website registered to? The "Coalition" doesn't want you to know, having hidden its registration information. And why not? The website is as flimsy & phony as the group itself. Here's a photo from the site:

 

A "Coalition" supporter? Not exactly. More like a stock photo:

You'd think front groups would have learned from Big Coal's embarrassing "FACES of Coal" stock photo scandal. Guess not. In fact, the entire Flickr account of the "Coalition" appears to be stock photos.

What about the group's phone number? It's a cell phone that goes straight to voicemail ... but a search shows up as having it registered to "Chemis American." Is that the American Chemistry Council, based in Arlington? Considering the "Coalition" ads are prominently featured on the Chemistry Council's front page, it looks like we have a winner!

Why wouldn't the American Chemistry Council want its name attached to the ads? Given that the ExxonMobil Chemical Company is a member, I can see where the Council would want to distance itself from, well, itself. And it turns out the website was created by a public relations firm called v-Fluence, whose clients include the American Petroleum Institute. (The firm didn't return my call asking who'd paid for the "Coalition" site.)

Frankly, it's insulting that the American Chemistry Council & other big polluters think Virginians can be fooled by phony front groups with fake members. I hope shenanigans like this help convince Senators Mark Warner & Jim Webb to stand against any polluter efforts to gut the Clean Air Act.

Even more bizarre is that certain conservative websites mindlessly posted the ad without ever asking who was behind them. Those same bloggers will put a big "Don't Tread on Me" banner on their website -- but have footprints all over their backs from polluter front groups.

Cross-posted from Blue Virginia