The Nexus of Biofuels, Climate Change, and Human Health Workshop Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
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9 Environmental Health Policies and Opportunities
9 Environmental Health Policies and Opportunities
Pages 137-152
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From page 137... ...
These include reducing air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions from biomass fuels and coal; increasing fuel security; benefiting rural economies; and increasing energy availability, both for today's growing populations and for future generations. She addressed each of these in turn.
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From page 138... ...
Unfortunately, she said, "that is not generally how we perform risk assessment." Reducing Greenhouse Gases A second major policy goal is reducing air pollutants that act as greenhouse gases. "We know that global climate change already is having a profound impact on the public's health," Goldman said.
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From page 139... ...
Increasing Fuel Security According to Goldman, fuel security is an important public health issue. For example, she said, "Increasing fuel security could potentially increase national security and thereby prevent adverse health impacts that are related to regional and global conflicts." Such impacts occur as the direct result of conflicts, she said, but they can also occur indirectly because of the displacement of civilian populations during conflicts and morbidity and mortality impacts on such populations.
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From page 140... ...
Depletion of soil and water resources could damage rural economies and the health of people who live in those parts of the country, now and in the future. Increasing Energy Availability Another factor to consider concerning biofuels is the effects on health of increasing energy availability, both now and for future generations.
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From page 141... ...
Sustainability of water use is particularly doubtful when the water is coming from fossil water supplies, like the Ogallala aquifer, bringing biofuels production into competition for the water with other human and environmental purposes, and with preserving the water for future generations. Given the need to expand future production, there may be serious limitations on how much biofuels production can be expanded, she said.
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From page 142... ...
The committee members took that as an example for the development of the framework, Goldstein said, because "we had in mind that in the future Congress would ask the EPA and other agencies for a sustainability assessment of biofuels, not for a risk assessment." Such a sustainability assessment extends well beyond the issue of risk and examines many different types of trade-offs. "That is what I will be talking about," he said.
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From page 143... ...
"What we simply said is that if you go back to the nation's first major environmental act, the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] of 1969, signed by President Nixon, all of the aspects of sustainability are in that act, even though the word sustainability is not mentioned.
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From page 144... ...
"We can't expect every single action of the EPA to be governed by a relatively complex approach," Goldstein said. "Most actions will probably not need any major sustainability assessment." Assuming that further analysis is needed, the next step involves scoping and options identification, stakeholder identification, indicator and metrics selection, and assessing collaboration opportunities.
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From page 145... ...
FIGURE 9-1 Sustainability framework for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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From page 146... ...
. Life-cycle assessment and cost-benefit analysis are two other well-known tools that are important to sustainability assessment, and a variety of other tools also play a role: ecosystem services valuation, integrated assessment models, sustainability impact assessment, and environmental justice tools.
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From page 147... ...
For example, the EIA will assert: ‘No air pollution standards, no water pollution standards will be violated, no noise will disturb the neighbors.' I assert, and the Academy's committee on Health Impact Assessment asserts: we don't adequately capture health in the environmental impact assessment process, even though it is required under the National Environmental Policy Act." Jackson described his experience serving on the joint National Research Council and Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Impact Assessment with Dinah Bear, who was with the Council of Environmental Quality in the White House. She was a very experienced lawyer with 25 years of experience, working on NEPA.
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From page 148... ...
Jackson, continued, When the United States produced large quantities of ethanol from immense quantities of corn, we clearly need to examine the impacts on the environment, but just as important are the impacts on health. Did the impact assessment include the health impacts on contamination of surface and ground water with nitrates from fertilizer, a known cause of infant methemoglobinemia?
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From page 149... ...
It also engages communities and stakeholders early and throughout the deliberative process, not just at the end. In practice, HIAs should not be restricted by a narrow definition of health or restricted to any particular policy sector, level of government, type of proposal, or specific health outcome or issue.
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From page 150... ...
" Goldstein commented that there is already work being done with various sorts of health assessments, and there is a great deal of support among EPA staff for HIAs. "They just don't have a framework, a setting, which allows them to move forward as readily as they could, if some sort of framework was in front of them." Goldman added, "I would say that what needs to happen is that people need to start performing health impact assessments, and not waiting for mandates or waiting for administrative requirements." An
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From page 151... ...
. lead by example." An audience member commented that most of the workshop presentations had focused on sustainability, which involves protecting resources for future generations.
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From page 152... ...
2011b. Improving health in the United States: The role of health impact assessment.
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