California Goes After ETS

This week, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) identified environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) as a Toxic Air Contaminant. An analysis conducted by the Office of Environmental and Health Hazards Assessment (which gives you the inelegant-sounding acronym OEHHA) identifying relationships between ETS exposure and a range of adverse effects provided the basis for ARB’s determination.

OEHHA’s report concluded there were associations between ETS exposure and premature births, low birth-weight babies, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Other effects of ETS on children include the induction and exacerbation of asthma, and infections of the middle-ear and respiratory system. OEHHA also reported that ETS exposure was associated with increased incidences of breast cancer in non-smoking, pre-menopausal women, incidences of lung and nasal sinus cancers in adults, heart disease, eye and nasal irritation, and asthma.

In 2001, ARB and OEHHA initiated a process to update the information on ETS and to identify ETS as a toxic air contaminant (TAC) as mandated by the air toxics regulatory program referred to as Assembly Bill 1807. Under AB1807, ARB is required to identify substances in air that may pose a threat to public health as toxic air contaminants. This involves a two-step process, risk identification and risk management. What was published this week was the risk identification step for ETS.

Regulatory action that might be needed to control the identified risks is addressed in the second step (risk management). The risk management step includes a review of controls already in place, the available technologies and associated costs for reducing emissions, and the associated risk reduction. Extensive public involvement is included in the development of the control measures. ARB takes into consideration cost-effectiveness, and the balance between public health protection and economic growth, in developing the control plan. With ARB's determination, ETS essentially has been elevated to the same status as benzene emissions from oil refineries, hexavalent chromium emissions from aerospace manufacturing and diesel particulates from engines everywhere. This is a significant fusion of public health and environmental protection initiatives. It is difficult to imagine USEPA’s urban air toxics program addressing ETS.

The ETS report, findings from ARB’s Scientific Review Panel, proposed rulemaking and 571 pages of public comments, can be found here.

Controlling ETS has to be a good thing – even the ACSH is somewhat behind it.

This news emerges at the same time as the controversy among tobacco control activists about firing employees who smoke, or as the World Health Organization is doing, not hiring smokers. It’s a disquieting trend; but, at the same time, do smokers have the right to add to the healthcare burden of this country?

The ARB is an arm of the California Environmental Protection Agency (Cal-EPA). I know from personal experience (I used to work for an agency that is now part of Cal-EPA) that Cal-EPA has not always been popular with it’s federal counterpart, the USEPA. However, what is valuable about state regulatory programs in populous states such as California, New York and New Jersey, is that they can lead the way for other states and eventually the federal government. It’s hard to imagine federal agencies under the thumb of the Bush Administration taking such a bold step.