onomist Reed Walker established that air pollution causes low birth weights by examining what happened after traffic congestion and automobile emissions declined near New Jersey toll plazas. Currie and Walker found that after the state introduced electronic highway tolls, or E-Z Pass, the ensuing reduction in automobile emissions reduced the incidence of prematurity and low birth weight among mothers who lived within two kilometers of a toll plaza. The 8.5 percent to 11.3 percent reduction was determined by comparing changes in birth weights of children near the toll plaza—the treatment group—and those farther away from the toll plaza—the control group. These and other natural experiments allow researchers to measure the causal effects of exposure to pollution, as well as access to health insurance or receipt of nutritional assistance.
The House budget includes $887 billion in cuts over 10 years from nondefense programs that Congress funds annually in appropriations bills. Most of these cuts are vague and unspecified reductions that Congress would have to make in future years, but the budget specifically targets the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, for budget cuts. And based on the House Appropriations Committee’s actions in earlier years, these cuts would also be likely to fall particularly hard on lead removal efforts.
Research on the effects of pollution on children’s health has especially focused on how reductions in pollution as a result of environmental regulation improve children’s health, since the introduction of new rules creates a natural experiment that allows researchers to measure causality. One study, for example, found that the Clean Air Act prevented between five and eight infant deaths per 100,000 live births for every a one-unit reduction in airborne particulates caused by the law. Another study found that a two standard deviation increase in two types of pollutants regulated by the EPA—heavy metal cadmium and toluene—increased the incidence of low birth weights by 1.2 percent to 2.7 percent. Cleaning up polluted areas under the EPA’s Superfund program reduces the incidence of congenital anomalies—such as Down syndrome and heart defects—by 20 percent to 25 percent for children born near these sites.
Recent research verifies the causal link between a child’s exposure to pollution and worse economic outcomes as an adult. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 led to a reduction in air pollution that translated into a 0.7 percent increase in the annual number of quarters worked and a 1 percent increase in earnings—equal to $4,300 over a lifetime.
Effective environmental enforcement is therefore pro-growth since the resulting increases in birth weight will raise children’s labor-force participation and earnings once they reach adulthood. In light of this evidence, attempts to reduce the EPA budget are puzzling. In 2015, the House Appropriations Committee attempted to cut the EPA budget by about 9 percent. The House budget resolution would force the House Appropriations Committee to work within even lower spending levels in future years. Therefore, these unspecified cuts would likely force even deeper reductions at the EPA. Adam M. Kushner, the former director of the Office of Civil Enforcement at the EPA, warns that these cuts could reduce environmental laws to “just paper” due to a lack of enforcement, which will increase the amount of pollution to which children are exposed.
The vague cuts in the Congressional budget resolution also would likely impact a program targeting the removal of lead-based paint from low-income housing. The House Appropriations Committee has attempted to make huge cuts to this program for three years in a row, and the spending limits that this year’s budget resolution endorses for future years could force even steeper cuts. These cuts to the lead abatement program deserve particular attention given the catastrophe in Flint.
The research shows that these cuts will significantly reduce future economic growth because of their effect on children’s cognitive abilities and j