California Attorney General Rob Bonta led a coalition of 12 attorneys general Wednesday supporting the Environmental Protection Agency’s findings that leaded aviation gasoline endangers public health and welfare.
The letter, signed by attorneys general from Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, urges the EPA to swiftly finalize its proposed findings and begin rulemaking based on those findings to protect the public from exposure to lead in the aviation gasoline.
Once the EPA finalizes its findings, the EPA is required to generate lead emission standards and regulations surrounding piston-engine planes under the Clean Air Act and to require the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to establish aircraft fuel standards consistent with those lead emission standards.
“Piston-engine airplanes are the largest source of lead air pollution in the nation, and consequently, communities living, working, and going to school near airports are bearing the brunt of their toxic emissions,” Bonta said. “We’re encouraged that the EPA is taking this first important step toward protecting the public from lead pollution from these airplanes. But in order to protect our residents from lead pollution, we urge the EPA to swiftly finalize its proposal and move forward with a rulemaking to set emission standards that do right by our communities and protect public health.”
Leaded aviation gas is the only remaining lead-containing transportation fuel and is the single largest contributor of airborne lead emissions in the United States. Piston-engine planes powered by leaded aviation gas released more than 465 tons of lead in 2017. Those planes are responsible for nearly 3/4s of total lead emissions nationwide.
Bonta and the California Air Resources Board are currently leading a multistate lawsuit that challenges the EPA’s standards for regulating greenhouse gas emissions from airplanes.