This week, The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) expressed alarm with the Environmental Protection Agency’s lowering of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter. According to TFI, the change will lead to permitting gridlock across much of the country, negatively impacting economic growth and fertilizer production.
TFI President and CEO Corey Rosenbusch says, “At a time when the need to strengthen the domestic fertilizer industry has been made clear by multiple ongoing global crises and echoed by the Biden Administration, now is not the time to hamstring fertilizer production.”
The standards have significantly curtailed air pollution nationwide, but a major challenge for industries arises as those levels are progressively lowered. Despite ongoing technological improvements, industries reach a threshold where additional air quality improvements become more and more unfeasible under stricter standards, especially as 84 percent of current PM2.5 emissions originate from non-industrial sources. TFI claims PM2.5 emissions have declined nearly 40 percent over the past twenty years and continue to decrease.
(From the National Association of Farm Broadcasters)