Green: A Critique of Barton's Air Quality Claims

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency, acting under court order, proposed the first national standard for emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

The standards, which have yet to be made final, are expected to force the closings of dozens of aging coal plants and require the installation of expensive clean-up technology at newer plants, and industry groups and Republicans in Congress have vowed to fight them.

One of those leading the charge against the rules is Representative Joe Barton of Texas, who found himself under fire on Tuesday by public health advocates for comments sharply questioning the public health benefit of controlling mercury, particulate matter and other emissions from power plants.

At a Congressional hearing in April, Mr. Barton suggested that an E.P.A. estimate that the pollution control rules would prevent 17,000 premature deaths per year had been “pulled out of thin air.”

The numbers must be exaggerated, Mr. Barton said, because “to cause poisoning or a premature death, you have to get a large concentration of mercury into the body.”

“I am not a medical doctor, but my hypothesis is that is not going to happen,” he said.

“You are not going to get enough mercury exposure or SO2 exposure or even particulate matter exposure,” Mr. Barton continued.

In a letter to Mr. Barton on Tuesday, the physician leaders of the American Lung Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association and other health groups pointed to a broad range of peer-reviewed studies that “establish a clear link between air pollution and a range of serious adverse human health effects.”

The doctors’ letter noted that mercury is particularly hazardous to fetuses and young children, in whom high concentrations can impede brain and nervous system development.

In an interview, Georges C. Benjamin, a former emergency room physician and executive director of the American Public Health Association, said that Mr. Barton’s focus on poisoning deaths revealed a lack of understanding of the dangers of ambient air pollution.

“That isn’t how these things affect human health,” Dr. Benjamin said.

Rather, he said, high levels of particulate matter, ozone and other pollutants contribute to cardiopulmonary and respiratory disease, triggering heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks.

The E.P.A.’s estimate that the new pollution controls would prevent 17,000 premature deaths was based on an in-depth analysis of life expectancy, mortality and pollution exposure data, he said.

“These numbers are based on the best science that we have,” he said.

Dr. Benjamin suggested that if Mr. Upton had further doubts about the health threat from air pollution, he could observe the impacts in person at hospitals in his district, on days when air quality was poor.

In 2008, the Fort Worth-Arlington area, where one of the congressman’s district offices is located, experienced 27 days when air quality was rated unhealthy for the elderly, children or those with chronic illnesses, according to E.P.A. data.

“Just stand there and watch, and see who comes in,” he said. “This is not a hard test to prove.”