CALIFORNIA DESIGNATES SECOND-HAND SMOKE AS A "TOXIC AIR CONTAMINANT"

     The California Air Resources Board made the following press release yesterday:

          California Identifies Second-Hand Smoke as a "Toxic Air Contaminant"

SACRAMENTO: Today the California Air Resources Board (ARB) identified environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), or second-hand smoke, as a Toxic Air Contaminant (TAC). ETS is now formally identified as an airborne toxic substance that may cause and/or contribute to death or serious illness. ARB's action to list ETS as a TAC was based on a comprehensive report on exposure and health effects of ETS.

"This new report reaffirms many of the adverse health effects associated with ETS, especially in children who live in homes where smoking occurs," said ARB Chairman, Dr. Robert Sawyer. "It also raises new concerns about its effects on women. All this strongly supported the need for the Air Board to identify ETS as a serious health threat."

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Now that ETS is identified as a toxic air contaminant, the ARB must evaluate the need for action to reduce exposures. In this risk management step, ARB conducts an analysis that includes a review of measures already in place, available options and the costs for reducing the health risks from ETS exposure. The analysis is conducted using an open public process.

     So, here we go:  with a continuing budget deficit, complaints about already-underfunded programs and already high tax rates, the State of California is about to embark on yet a new (undoubtedly expensive) regulatory program.

     This is not to gainsay that second-hand smoke may well be the health hazard that the Air Resources Board claims such smoke to be-- however, it would seem that the marketplace takes care of the issue far more effectively (and less expensively) than government.  If people don't want to be around second-hand smoke, don't patronize the places that allow smoking!  What a concept.

     It is true that children living in the homes of parents who smoke don't have the choice as to whether or not to be around the smoke.  However, it is also true that children don't have a lot of choices which are instead made for them by their parents.  For example, parents choose (or, arguably, should choose) what television programs their minor children are allowed to watch.

     Just as it is highly unlikely that the government is going to attempt to send "television police" into private homes to ensure kids' minds are not being polluted by the shows they watch, it is equally unlikely that the Air Resources Board is going to propose measures authorizing the "smoking police" to invade private homes to check on kids' physical pollution from smoking.  That being the case, where there is a legitimate social regulatory interest (i.e., the public square), I say again-the market will take care of the problem much better than will the bureaucrats in Sacramento.

Comments

[Nitha]

an Amazon study conducted erlaier this year, by the Soybean Work Group (GTS), “showed that of 630 samples of deforested areas since July 2006, only 12 had gone to soybeans and 200 to cattle. The remaining 418, or 70 percent, were unused indicating that the main reason for cutting down trees was for timber and land grabbing.”Hypothetically, if indirect land use change was actually happening, expansion of a sugar crop in India could have caused it. Expanding rice or cassava in China could have caused it. A new palm oil plantation in Indonesia could have caused it. A new jatropha grove in Africa may have caused it. A new cattle ranch in Argentina may have caused it. An apple orchard in New Zealand could have caused it, and so on.Deforestation is Not automatic proof that biofuels are the cause. Yet a lawyer, a lobbyist, an environmental activist, a biofuels critic, the mastermind of indirect land use change theory, has been allowed to steer EPA computer modeling to blame biofuels. That’s junk science.The EPA underestimates food byproducts that come out of biofuel crops. For example, when an acre of corn is processed to make ethanol, you also get over 20 gallons of corn oil and over 50 bushels of high protein livestock feed, used to produce food. Two thirds of that acre of corn, and the energy inputs to grow it and harvest it, goes to ethanol. The other third goes to food production. For biodiesel fuel, extracted from soybeans, 20% of the acre goes to the oil, and 80% goes to livestock feed that produces food. Only 1/5 of a soy acre is used for fuel. Because the EPA gets these relationships wrong, it falsely pro-rates the energy inputs between fuel and food and thereby overestimates the emissions of the fuel component.The EPA fails to accurately measure the carbon footprint of foreign oil shipped thousands of miles to the U.S. burning dirty bunker fuel and conventional diesel. And, in addition to that, 12 to 15% of the U.S. military budget is spent to protect our foreign oil supply (Rand Report). That entails keeping a military presence in the Middle East and burning huge quantities of jet fuel, dirty diesel, and more dirty bunker fuel to protect oil fields and pipelines and to escort oil tankers as needed. Long distance shipping needs to be factored into the carbon footprint of petroleum fuels made from foreign oil, and so does the fuel and the pollution involved in protecting it. Yet the EPA fails to do this, and it further distorts their false carbon score for petroleum.Embracing indirect land use change theory, before it was scientifically proven, is another display of corruption by the EPA. Fancy computer modeling and high tech satellite imagery are worthless, when the EPA uses false assumptions and inaccurate input data. The EPA also used an attorney-lobbyist, the author of the bogus land use theory, and his assistants, to peer review his own work. Other outspoken biofuels critics and political activists were also used. The EPA Did Not recommend the best candidates for peer review Department of Agriculture experts, who had years of experience in land use change, were not asked to participate.Then the EPA issued this false claim: We are pleased that this independent peer review has affirmed EPA's approach to be fair, credible and grounded in science. This was a fraudulent EPA statement, because their peer review process was Not fair, Not credible, and most of all, Not grounded in science. Numerous peer reviewers were biofuel critics and political activists with bias and conflicts of interest.Renewable Fuels Association President, Bob Dinneen responded: “EPA has asked the foxes to guard the hen house on this issue. By adding lawyers and advocates to a scientific review panel, EPA bureaucrats have made a mockery of the Administration’s commitment to sound science. These reviews absolutely cannot be viewed as objective or unbiased. Many of these reviewers have repeatedly and openly demonstrated unabashed and politically-motivated biases against biofuels in the past, which immediately casts a long shadow of doubt over the legitimacy of EPA’s peer review process. This is a perversion of what the peer review process is supposed to achieve.”Professor Wally Tyner of the Agricultural Economics Department, Purdue University said, the “sweeping conclusions” made by believers in indirect land use change theory are premature and unproven.Dr. Hao Tan and Professor John Mathews of Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia agreed. After exhaustive analysis Mathews stated: Indirect land use change effects are too diffuse and subject to too many arbitrary assumptions to be useful for rule-making. 111 scientists stated jointly in a recent letter to CARB, that indirect land use change theory is immature and can not be validated. This was signed by (1) Blake A. Simmons, Ph.D., Vice President, Deconstruction Division, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Manager, Biomass Science and Conversion Technology, Sandia National Laboratories; (2) Harvey W. Blanch, Ph.D., Chief Science and Technology Officer, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Member, National Academy of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; and (3) Bruce E. Dale, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor, Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Michigan State University.Replacing petroleum fuels with biofuels is an opportunity to recycle existing CO2, instead of bringing-up more and more new carbon from underground and spewing it into the air. This causes CO2 to accumulate in the atmosphere. Substituting biofuels for fossil fuels can be a key factor in mitigating climate change.That is, if we get rid of the oil interests embedded in the EPA, and clean-up their illegitimate rulemaking.The Obama Administration appears to have a two faced, forked tongue policy toward biofuels. To their face, farmers and biofuel producers are being promised smiley government support. But on their backside, the EPA is giving them the shaft – Hitting them with rules and regulations that are Not grounded in science and Not based on accurate data.The EPA’s comparative analysis carbon score for biofuel vs petroleum fuel is grossly inaccurate. This casts a shadow of uncertainty on EPA's proposed rules. The numbers will need to be redone and done right.

[Michael]

I read what was said that second hand smoke holds they same risk percentage of being a passenger of a car, or sky diving...
All I want to say is that people have the choice to be a part of those things. However, people do not, apparently, have the choice to keep second hand smoke in the air.

People have a choice to put themselves at risk when they go sky-diving, but do they have a choice to keep the air about them free of second hand smoke when a child's father smokes regularly?

[Kelly]

Check out http://fullmetalattorney.blogspot.com/2006/01/second-hand-smoke.html for an impartial discussion of smoking bans.