A science advisory committee to the U.S. EPA has agreed with the agency’s assessment that diesel fumes are a “likely human carcinogen,” clearing the way for the EPA to release a report on diesel exhaust that has been at least 10 years in the making. The draft EPA report okayed by the committee, which is made up of independent scientists, estimates that the cancer risk from lifelong exposure to diesel exhaust ranges from one in 1,000 to one in 100,000. The report gives the agency justification to go ahead later this year with rules to rein in truck and bus pollution. The EPA has proposed new rules for trucks and buses that would require cuts in some pollutants of at least 90 percent over the next several years. Enviros would like the final rules to be tougher still.
