The Clean Air Act of 1999 needs to be updated along with its implementing regulations.
"Twenty-five years is more than enough time to justify updating it," remarked Biñan City, Laguna Representative Len Alonte, who chairs the ecology committee and vice chairs the House appropriations committee.
"The latest phreatic eruption of Kanlaon Volcano, the sulfur ejections of Taal Volcano, and the resulting volcanic fog are signals to Congress and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to upgrade the 1999 law and the DENR rules," she said in a statement.
"I filed HR 1324, a resolution directing the committee on ecology to inquire into the Department of Environment and Natural Resources program pertaining to the review and adoption of clean air emission standards and consider, for this purpose, the adoption of the updated World Health Organization air quality guideline values," Alonte added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guideline values in place are already old. WHO updated its air quality guidelines in 2021 “in response to the real and continued threat of air pollution to public health.”
She said the WHO itself cites its guidelines are “a set of evidence-based recommendations of limit values for specific air pollutants developed to help countries achieve air quality that protects public health.”
“The first release of the guidelines was in 1987. Since then, several updated versions have appeared, and the latest global version was published in 2005. WHO updates the Air Quality Guidelines on a regular basis so as to assure their continued relevance and to support a broad range of policy options for air-quality management in various parts of the world, especially taking into account the breadth of new health studies that have been published in the meanwhile,” the solon also quoted the WHO.
#WeTakeAStand #OpinYon #LenAlonte #CleanAirAct #WHO