AGENCY TESTIMONY
Overview of New York City's progress in air quality improvement
0:16:11
·
75 sec
Commissioner Aggarwala presents an overview of New York City's significant progress in improving air quality over the past two decades.
- Reports a 60% decline in PM2.5 and a 40% decline in nitrogen dioxide over 20 years
- Highlights the corresponding decrease in asthma-related emergency room visits
- Attributes improvements to changes in vehicle and building fuels mandated by federal and local legislation
- Emphasizes the importance of mechanical and infrastructure improvements over behavior change
Rohit T. Aggarwala
0:16:11
You have sponsored some of the most important air quality legislation we have, including the legislation that enabled DEP to phase out dirty heating oil, one of our most impactful local air quality initiatives.
0:16:22
New York City has in fact made tremendous progress on air quality.
0:16:26
Driven largely by changes in both vehicle and building fuels as mandated by federal and local legislation.
0:16:32
Over the past 20 years, we've seen a 60% decline in PM2.5 and a 40% decline in nitrogen dioxide, as found in recent research by the Department of Health And Mental Hygiene.
0:16:45
The health impacts of these improvements have been clear and direct over that same period.
0:16:50
The number of asthma related emergency room visits in New York City dropped by pretty much the same amounts.
0:16:57
This success is remarkable.
0:16:58
Today, our air is cleaner than it has been since the civil war.
0:17:02
The same DOHMH study also found that the bulk of this improvement stemmed from fuel quality requirements that were mandated federally for vehicles and locally for heating oil.
0:17:13
In other words, we only saw real improvement when changes to equipment and fuels made it physically impossible to pollute.
0:17:21
These mandates for mechanical or infrastructure improvements do much more than attempts to change behavior.
