Air Pollutants and Children

John Dunlap, chairman of the state Air Resources Board, chided me in a letter (Aug. 18) for carrying legislation that is, in his view, “unnecessary and based on a misunderstanding of current law.” But who is confused?

My AB 278 is a simple, common-sense bill that directs the state’s air quality and public health experts to review the state’s key air pollutant standards to determine if they adequately protect infants and children, and to revise the standards if they are found lacking.

Dunlap claims that state law already requires air pollutant standards to protect sensitive populations. But a simple reading of the two air pollution laws that AB 278 would amend demonstrates he is wrong: They include no mention of infants and children. He claims we have offered no evidence that air standards are failing to protect the health of all Californians. Yet a recent study found that levels of benzene and formaldehyde in ambient outdoor air exceed safe levels in 90% of the census tracts in the U.S. And this study did not take into account the greater exposure or susceptibility of children to these toxic air contaminants.

Children are more exposed to environmental toxins than adults are. Proportionally they breathe more air and play outside more than adults. Due to their still-developing organs, they often are more susceptible to carcinogens and other pollutants than adults.

Yet in 1996, as The Times pointed out (Aug. 9), an advisory panel of public health experts recommended to the state’s risk assessment agency, in a written report, that they use a safety factor to account for exposure to carcinogens in breast milk. The California Environmental Protection Agency struck the recommendation when the single panelist representing industry objected. California still does not use a safety factor to account for children’s early life exposures.

Dunlap concludes, “Escutia is too late” because the job is already being done. He is half-right. I am late. AB 278 should have been enacted years ago. But the job is not being done, which is why it is still not too late to pass AB 278.

MARTHA M. ESCUTIA

Assembly, D-Huntington Park