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Executive Summary
North Carolina leaders have made progress on air
quality by cutting pollution from power plants.
But air pollution continues to cause asthma attacks, visits to the
emergency rooms, and increased risk of cancer in North Carolina.
More than 4 million North Carolinians in 32 counties often experience
unsafe levels of ozone during the summer months. These high levels of pollution are a
particular threat to the 188,000 children–nearly one in ten–who suffer
from asthma. Toxic pollution is less
well-known, but no less serious. For
example, concentrations of the probable carcinogen 1,3-butadiene, exceed safe
benchmark levels established by the U.S. EPA in more than 90 of North
Carolina’s 100 counties.
Automobiles contribute to 30% of North Carolina’s smog forming pollution and up to
60% of airborne carcinogens in the state.
At the same time, vehicle miles of travel in North Carolina are increasing nearly three times as
fast as our population. Reducing
pollution from automobiles is the next step towards clean, healthy air in North
Carolina.
Federal standards exist to control automobile emissions, but
the Clean Cars Program, already adopted or in the process of adoption in eleven
other states, will take reductions in air pollution a crucial step
further.
The Clean Cars Program has two key advantages over federal emissions
standards. First, stricter pollution
standards require new versions of the dirtiest cars allowed under the federal
program to be significantly cleaner, helping to cut smog and toxic pollution. Second, the Clean Cars Program will make more
advanced technology vehicles, which are 90% cleaner than most conventional
vehicles, available to the state’s consumers.
At an estimated cost of less than $220 per car—the price of a
new set of floor mats—for the vast majority of cars sold in the state, these
two features of the program are expected to make crucial cuts to smog and toxic
pollution in the state. For the
children, the elderly, those with respiratory disease, and even some normal,
healthy adults, every pound of air pollution reduction makes a difference.
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