Wildfire smoke from Canada caused dangerously unhealthy air quality in New York City and across much of the U.S. in 2023. While air quality has improved greatly in the U.S. in recent decades, wildfire smoke and other climate-influenced problems are endangering that progress.. That number is larger in 2023 than in years past, despite significant long-term and ongoing efforts to clean the nation's air. And climate change, the report says, is making the job harder.
The report highlights an increasingly clear challenge, says Susan Anenberg, an air quality expert at George Washington University and a consultant for the EPA. Through regulations over past decades,"we've pretty much addressed the easiest ways of reducing pollution," she says."So we have catalytic converters on our vehicles, we have diesel particulate filters on our trucks, we have scrubbers on our power plants.
Bakersfield, California, has stayed at the top of the report's list for the U.S. city with the worst short-term particle pollution in the country for five years. This time, it also got top billing for year-round particle pollution, too. The region is a major site of oil and gas production as well as agriculture, both of which produce significant local pollution.
Communities of color and low-income Americans have historically breathed in dirtier air than wealthier or whiter communities . The agency lowered the allowable pollution from 12 micrograms per meter cubed of air averaged over a year to 9—a major tightening, says Anenberg.
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