Environmental Issues: Health

Health Main Page

All Documents in Health Tagged air pollution

U.S. Latinos and Air Pollution
A Call to Action
Report

Air pollutants surround us wherever we are. On a daily basis, we are exposed to carbon, lead, nitrogen oxides, ozone, soot, and hundreds of other air pollutants emitted from our cars, factories, power plants, and heavy machinery. At certain levels, many of these pollutants become highly harmful to human health, and Latinos are especially vulnerable because they live in regions with the worst air contamination.

Gasping for Air: Toxic Pollutants Continue to Make Millions Sick and Shorten Lives
Fact Sheet

Forty years of Clean Air Act programs have brought steady and life-saving improvements to our air quality. Despite this important progress, however, many fossil fuel power plants, boilers, and cement plants continue to treat our skies like sewers. From soot to toxic heavy metals, dirty coal and fossil fuel smoke stacks emit vast quantities of dangerous pollutants that are well known to cause disease and death. The total cost of these health impacts is more than $100 billion per year. Until stronger standards to reduce toxic emissions from coal and fossil fuel burning industries are implemented, harmful toxic chemicals will continue to be released into the air of our communities, threatening public health. Get document in pdf.

Get the Lead Out
Guide

Children across the nation face the risk of lead poisoning, but steps can be taken to protect them.

Boosting the Benefits
Improving Air Quality and Health by Reducing Global Warming Pollution in California
Issue Paper

California has the opportunity to combat global warming while simultaneously improving air quality and public health throughout the state. Measures being considered under the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) could save hundreds of lives and prevent thousands of other negative health impacts each year -- saving billions of dollars in healthcare costs.

More >

Documents Tagged air pollution in All Sections

Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States
Presentation

The EPA recently finalized the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), requiring significant reductions in mercury and air toxic emissions, inlcuding those from the electric sector, the largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in the United States. Despite the significant benefit to public health, power companies and some in Congress continue to fight against the standards.

Benchmarking Air Emissions of the 100 Largest Electric Power Producers in the U.S., 2012
Report

The Benchmarking project uses public data to compare the emissions performance of the 100 largest power producers in the United States, and discusses market trends affecting the electric generating sector, including trends in fuel prices, technology developments, and environmental regulations.

Testimony of David D. Doniger, Policy Director and Senior Attorney, Climate and Clean Air Program, Natural Resources Defense Council
Testimony

Hearing on the U.S. Agricultural Sector Relief Act of 2012 Subcommittee on Energy and Power-Committee on Energy and Commerce-House of Representatives-July 18, 2012 Get document in pdf.

The Price of Pollution Politics
Eight Companies Attacking Clean Air Standards…and the Toll on America’s Health
Report

A handful of companies are spending millions to finance an assault on clean air -- lobbying and litigating to block, weaken and delay clean air standards that would save lives and protect Americans' health from the power sector's dangerous and deadly air pollution.

More >

For additional policy documents, see the NRDC Document Bank.
For older publications available only in print, click here.