Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Campus & Community
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • Videos
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Library
    • Research
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Campus & Community

U.S. EPA’s Tom Kelly highlights role of science, communication in indoor air quality policy

Wednesday, September 16, 2009, By News Staff
Share

The opening plenary speaker on the fourth day of the Ninth International Healthy Buildings Conference, hosted by the Syracuse Center of Excellence, was Tom Kelly, director of the Indoor Environments Division (IED), a non-regulatory body of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA). Kelly has been director of this division for six years, supervising groundbreaking scientific studies and publishing guidance handbooks aimed at protecting indoor air quality.

Introduced by Cornelius B. Murphy, president of the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Kelly began by gently amending the introduction offered by Murphy, who described him as “a scientist … even a good one”— a comment that drew chuckles from the crowd. Instead, Kelly classified himself as a sociologist who has spent a lot of time working around policymakers and scientists who help make good, effective policy possible. Throughout his talk, Kelly highlighted the critical role that science plays in crafting not only policy, but in creating non-regulatory guidelines that alter behavior through incentives rather than penalization. This differentiation is central to the role of the Indoor Environments Division within the EPA, Kelly says.

“If regulation is the jet engine that drives change, then [the IED] is a hang glider— trying to catch the wind,” says Kelly.

As director, he promotes the use of what he calls “social contagion,” borrowing a medical metaphor to describe the way he hopes to bring about change. Through effective communication, if his division can convince enough people (and industries) that it is in their best interest economically to improve indoor air quality, then that is what brings about change, and that power of persuasion relies squarely on the inquiry and research of scientists—just like the more than 1,000 delegates and attendees at HB2009.

Within his speech, Kelly touched on a few of the specific programs that the IED has fostered to help accomplish that. Their radon program, which has been around for 25 years, has traditionally been a “hard sell” when it comes to convincing contractors for instance to prevent indoor radon contamination— radon is invisible and therefore not as pressing in some people’s minds. However, through the efforts of their radon program and the IED’s partnering with other scientific bodies such as the National Academy of Sciences and European scientific research teams, the World Health Organization has granted that indoor radon exposure, even at low levels, is a global matter of concern. On Monday, the WHO will release an international handbook on controlling radon indoors, according to Kelly.

IED also has an extensive program aimed at changing the way that asthma is viewed and dealt with in this country—merging research from the EPA’s scientists with the medical community—and showing that asthma is not purely a medical concern and oftentimes is predicated by poor indoor air quality.

Perhaps of greatest interest to those who are following the “green-building” movement, the IED’s “Indoor Air Plus” program is partnering with Energy Star— the folks who are working to advance energy efficient homes— and crafting guidelines that will help prevent bad air from getting trapped inside newly weatherized, airtight homes. According to Kelly, this was the case back in the 1970s, when the energy crisis led to homes and offices becoming “locked boxes,” causing the nation to suffer from “sick building syndrome.” As the president’s economic stimulus package rolls out $2 billion in a weatherization program, IED’s Indoor Air Plus is working hard to make sure that won’t happen again.

In a post-talk interview, Murphy noted that Americans spend as much as 80 percent of their time indoors, and while legislation in the form of the Clean Air Act regulates what goes into outdoor air, we as yet have no comprehensive regulation governing indoor air quality. When asked if this regulation might be down the road, or whether the IED and the US EPA should be pushing it, Murphy pointed out that regulation only establishes minimum standards, when in fact policymakers should be focusing on how to incentivize through free market tools companies and builders actually exceeding these standards.

Syracuse Center of Excellence (syracusecoe.org) is a collaborative organization of more than 200 businesses and institutions that creates innovations for sustainable built and urban environments. SyracuseCoE members work on research, development, and educational projects relating to clean and renewable energy, indoor environmental quality and water resources.

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • COVID-19 Update: Get Vaccinated! | Submit Proof of Vaccination | Testing Center Hours
    Friday, April 9, 2021, By News Staff
  • Stephen Kuusisto Receives 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry
    Friday, April 9, 2021, By Ellen de Graffenreid
  • Please Complete the Faculty/Staff COVID-19 Vaccine Status Attestation Questionnaire
    Friday, April 9, 2021, By News Staff
  • Alumnus and Trustee Marshall M. Gelfand ’50 Remembered
    Friday, April 9, 2021, By News Staff
  • Get Vaccinated | Activities for the Weekend of April 8-11 | Cautious Optimism
    Thursday, April 8, 2021, By News Staff

More In Campus & Community

COVID-19 Update: Get Vaccinated! | Submit Proof of Vaccination | Testing Center Hours

Dear Students, Families, Faculty and Staff: In recent days, there has been a renewed and palpable sense of energy on our campus. Many of us are feeling optimistic for the future, especially as more and more members of our community…

Please Complete the Faculty/Staff COVID-19 Vaccine Status Attestation Questionnaire

Good afternoon, As of June 1, Syracuse University will require a COVID-19 vaccination for all faculty and staff who access campus over the summer months. All new and returning faculty and staff will be required to be vaccinated prior to…

Alumnus and Trustee Marshall M. Gelfand ’50 Remembered

In 2013, Variety magazine honored Syracuse University alumnus and trustee Marshall M. Gelfand ’50 with its Business Managers Elite Award and an article titled “Veteran Business Manager Balances Work and Philanthropy.” Gelfand, who died April 1 at the age of…

Get Vaccinated | Activities for the Weekend of April 8-11 | Cautious Optimism

Dear Students and Families: With just over 40 days until the last day of the semester, it’s really starting to feel like spring on the Syracuse campus. Warmer and dryer weather brings more opportunity to get outside, enjoy the fresh…

VPA Junior Cameron Gray Named as a 2021 Beinecke Scholar

Cameron Gray, a junior film major in the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, has been named the recipient of a 2021 Beinecke Scholarship. She is the second Beinecke Scholar in Syracuse University’s history. The…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2021 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.