What if, in our nation, there was no fossil fuel soot? (Hang onto that thought.)

“Soot.” So blunt and primitive, the word is just right for the dark, greasy and pernicious thing it represents. The word time-travels us back to the dawn of the industrial age and soot-blackened windows of Charles Dickens novels and people hacking in London’s crowded tenements.

But soot did not go away with Oliver Twist. The sticky black particulate byproduct of fossil fuel combustion is still a problem in the 21st century, in a vast and still deadly way. Because worse than sticking to windows, soot sticks to lungs—to the lungs of children, of old people, of people in the prime of life. Once in our lungs, soot oozes toxins into our blood, causing heart attacks, asthma attacks, Alzhiemer’s disease, and other ailments. There are various estimates on overall health impact, but a 2022 report funded by the Environmental Defense Fund (1) estimates that soot causes 110,000 people in the United States each year to die prematurely and millions more to endure lives reduced by asthma and other respiratory diseases.

The EPA is creating a set of rules to reduce soot, and the most recent proposal was announced on January 6, 2023 (2). Fossil fuel companies and other industries say the proposed rules would be too expensive and that health impact studies are too imprecise. Meanwhile environmental advocates say the most recent proposed rule, in proposing to save an estimated 4,200 lives (3), doesn’t go far enough. Their point: once again our culture is shrugging off as unavoidable collateral damage the shortened lives and damaged health of people in low income neighborhoods. Black and Hispanic people living near freeways and industrial facilities breathe more soot than anybody else.

The newly proposed soot rule is estimated to cost industry $390 million a year when fully implemented in 2032. For context, if Exxon paid the one-year cost for every affected company in the nation to save those 4,200 lives, the expense would consume well less than 1% of Exxon’s 2022 profits of $56 billion (4).

So, back to the question at top. What if there was no fossil fuel soot to regulate? It might sound ridiculous, since soot has been such a visible mark of our fossil-fuel society. That dark tower of soot from a factory or diesel truck smokestack like an exclamation point on “progress!”—or “collateral damage!”—depending on where you happen to live.

The idea of “no fossil fuel soot” is not, however, a fantasy. As we push further in the urgent transition to a clean energy economy, soot emissions will fall dramatically. Electric cars will eliminate diesel automobile exhaust. As for heavy duty diesel trucks, a leading source of soot, in 2023 Pepsi is taking delivery of 100 full electric Tesla semi-trucks, with 500-mile range(5). The days of diesel trucks are numbered. Replacement of fuels for industrial processes will come later, but there are promising fuels in development.

With clean energy, instead of officials talking in dark terms that imply some people’s shortened lives are unavoidable collateral damage of a fossil fuel economy, we will talk of collateral benefits. A collateral benefit of eliminating CO2 emissions to stop global warming will be eliminating a tremendous amount of soot, and saving tens of thousands of lives—a far better solution than one that saves 4,200 lives.

Collateral benefits of a clean energy economy are multitudinous and are not mentioned often enough in the global warming debate.

In 2022 Senator Joe Manchin, who received more fossil fuel money than any other federal legislator that year (6), was able to significantly curtail the clean energy ambition and potential progress of the Inflation Reduction Act by sharply reducing the originally proposed funding. As his fossil fuel company contributors expected, Manchin prolonged the use of the global warming fuels that they produce. The IRA is still a win and will do much for clean energy, but we need to do way more.

When Manchin and others slow the clean energy transition, they are not only seriously damaging our planet’s future and humanity’s future by recklessly upping the certainty of a too-hot planet, they are also damaging the lives of people today because of the suite of industrial toxins that flow from the fossil fuel economy.

So, yes, let’s wage a pitched battle to wrangle the most protective soot rule we can from the federal rulemaking process. But let’s not forget for a single second that the far better goal we must rush toward is a clean energy economy. Net zero will render a soot rule a footnote in industrial history, and will elevate the health of hundreds of thousands of our people and deliver an essential measure of environmental justice along the way.

The comment period for the most recent soot rule, titled “Reconsideration of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter,” ends March 28, 2023. To read the rule and comment, go to: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/01/27/2023-00269/reconsideration-of-the-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-for-particulate-matter

Jeff Smith, Groundwork Communications Director
jeff.smith@groundworkcenter.org

(1) Analysis of PM2.5-Related Health Burdens Under Current and Alternative NAAQS
Final Report, April 15, 2022 Prepared by Industrial Economics, Inc., funded by Environmental Defense Fund
https://www.edf.org/media/report-senior-populations-black-americans-are-three-times-more-likely-die-exposure-particle

(2), (3): EPA announcement, January 6, 2023
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-strengthen-air-quality-standards-protect-public-harmful-effects-soot

(4) Exxon press release https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/news/newsroom/news-releases/2023/0131_exxonmobil-announces-full-year-2022-results#:~:text=Full%2Dyear%202022%20earnings%20were,an%20increase%20of%20%2432.7%20billion.

(5) Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/pepsico-roll-out-100-tesla-semis-2023-exec-2022-12-16/

(6) Open Secrets website
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary.php?ind=E01&cycle=2022&recipdetail=M&sortorder=U