Once again, the laughing stocks at the American Lung Association (ALA) have ranked the Pittsburgh metro area as having among the nation’s worst air.
But as the Allegheny Institute long has documented, the methodologies used to repeatedly make such claims have been seriously flawed. In 2019, for example, (and before and since) the think tank has called out the ALA for “malpractice”:
“What is in evidence is statistical malpractice,” noted Jake Haulk, president-emeritus. He long has considered the ALA’s analytical acumen – and we use that term loosely – as a “failure,” if not agenda-driven.
Eco-nutism comes in many forms. And nothing appears to have changed in that department.
But what appears to have changed is that this institute no longer is the proverbial lone wolf in the void. A relatively new organization – Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT) – has gone on the offensive against the ALA’s continuing gross misrepresentations.
Back to the ALA’s latest “report,” as detailed in a Tribune-Review dispatch:
“The annual ‘State of the Air’ report named the Pittsburgh-New Castle-Weirton metro area one of the worst in the nation for year-round particle pollution.
“The Pittsburgh metro area earned a failing grade in the annual report in terms of its pollution.
“The area was named the most polluted in the Mid-Atlantic region for daily and year-round particle pollution, and the 19th worst in the nation for long-term particle pollution. It also was ranked third worst in the Mid-Atlantic region for ozone smog.
“For the first time in the report’s 25-year history, the Pittsburgh metro area no longer ranks among the worst 25 metro areas in the nation for daily particle pollution. But just barely, as it sits in 26th this year,” the Trib notes, citing ALA statistics.
But Pittsburgh Works Together was not about to take another year of this, issuing a prebuttal to the ALA latest representations for the 2020-22 period.
“The American Lung Association’s latest air quality report … continues to mislead the public on air quality in the Pittsburgh region, distorting facts and disregarding accepted air quality standards established by federal regulators, a business-labor alliance announced today.
“’The American Lung Association continues to release flawed assessments of our region’s air quality,’ said Jeff Nobers, executive director of Pittsburgh Works Together, a coalition of labor unions, businesses and civic leaders. ‘The people of southwestern Pennsylvania continually read and hear the same inaccurate assessments of air quality in our region. What people need to know are the facts.’”
Nobers notes, as has the Allegheny Institute regarding past reports, that Allegheny County and the entire Pittsburgh region has met federal air quality standards for tiny pollutant particles (PM2.5) and ozone for 2020-2022.
Among other points of order, PWT also takes issue with ALA’s improper reliance “on a few air quality monitors in Allegheny County to pass judgment on a 12-county Pittsburgh metro region that is nearly as large as the entire state of New Jersey.”
It has been one of the Allegheny Institute’s most salient points for a long time.
Concludes Nobers: “The ALA’s annual distortions are counterproductive and create more divisiveness and move us further from viable solutions.”
We’re glad to see Pittsburgh Works Together joining the Allegheny Institute’s long-running birddogging of the American Lung Association’s continuing use of “science” that doesn’t even rise to “junk” status.
After all, as the institute’s Jake Haulk quipped, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Welcome to the club, PWT.
All this said, the ALA’s continual and willful statistical manipulation must no longer be tolerated. While it might have no qualms about repeatedly embarrassing itself, the Greater Pittsburgh Metro that it continues to smear has a simple retort for the American Lung Association’s shoddy work:
“Knock it off!”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
