US air quality is slipping after years of improvement
https://apnews.com/d3515b79af1246d08f7978f026c9092b
BY SETH BORENSTEIN and NICKY FORSTER
June 18, 2019
After decades of improvement, Americas air may not be getting any cleaner.
Over the last two years the nation had more polluted air days than just a few years earlier, federal data shows. While it remains unclear whether this is the beginning of a trend, health experts say its troubling to see air quality progress stagnate.
There were 15% more days with unhealthy air in America both last year and the year before than there were on average from 2013 through 2016, the four years when America had its fewest number of those days since at least 1980.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed just the opposite, saying earlier this month in Ireland: We have the cleanest air in the world, in the United States, and its gotten better since Im president.
Thats not quite the case. There were noticeably more polluted air days each year in the presidents first two years in office than any of the four years before, according to new Environmental Protection Agency data analyzed by The Associated Press.
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