Fight for healthier indoor air! Tell Congress to support Rep. Don Beyer’s Airborne Act 2024, and urge adding incentives to meet the ASHRAE 241 infection control standard. Send a personalized letter.

In July, Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) re-introduced the Airborne Act, a valuable bill to encourage non-residential building owners to assess indoor air quality (IAQ) and upgrade their ventilation and air filtration systems.

First filed in 2022, this bill uses the tax code to give building owners incentives to perform IAQ inspections and upgrades. The goal is to make indoor spaces safer from the threat of airborne diseases, wildfire smoke, and pollution.

The U.S. urgently needs a law to promote action for healthier indoor air, and this bill is an important start. However, we would like our government to aim higher.

The current bill, HR 9000, includes a general indoor air quality standard (Standard 62.1) from ASHRAE, an engineering association that sets standards for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. Meeting that ASHRAE 62.1 standard would bring big improvements to indoor air.

However, that standard alone is not enough to greatly reduce the risk of airborne disease spread indoors. The bill should be updated to include incentives to meet ASHRAE Standard 241. This new 2023 air quality standard, entitled “Control of Infectious Aerosols,” was created at the request of the White House. To achieve safer, healthier indoor spaces, we need the higher clean airflow rates that ASHRAE 241 requires.

At the start of Standard 241, ASHRAE explains, “The purpose of this standard is to establish minimum requirements for control of infectious aerosols to reduce risk of disease transmission” in non-residential, non-medical buildings.

This table shows the higher per-person clean airflow rates (in liters per second) under ASHRAE 241, compared to ASHRAE 62.1.:  

Source: Equivalent Clean Airflow Rates from ASHRAE 241 Control of Infectious Aerosols (Part 2) by Joey Fox (It’s Airborne)

Americans deserve the best ventilation standards to protect against pandemics and pollution. Clean air is a human right.

Read Airborne Act of 2024 in the press release and proposed bill.

And take action for #CleanAir indoors!