Current pollution standards too weak, EPA chief admits

WASHINGTON — Pollution standards are too weak to protect people from the air they breathe, the EPA's chief declared Thursday. He recommended tougher limits on the smog that makes children cough and asthmatics wheeze from Los Angeles to Houston to New York.

Still, under pressure from big business, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson left the door open to keeping the rules as they are.

It's the Environmental Protection Agency's first new recommendation since 1997 for ground-level ozone, the principal component of smog — that noxious combination of car exhaust, industrial emissions and gasoline vapors aggravated by summertime sun and heat.

Johnson recommended reducing current smog standards by 11 percent to 17 percent. Among other benefits, EPA estimated this could reduce by 30 percent to 60 percent the risk of children having trouble breathing normally.

"Based upon the current science, I have concluded that the current standard is insufficient to protect public health," Johnson told reporters on a conference call, noting that ozone can harm the lungs and aggravate asthma.

Studies have linked increased ozone levels with higher hospital admissions. EPA will release an impact analysis of its proposal in a few weeks that will detail health benefits and economic costs.

EPA measures smog by calculating the concentration of ozone molecules in the atmosphere over an eight-hour period. The current standard is .084 parts per million. EPA is proposing reducing that to between .070 and .075 parts per million.

The agency will take public comment for 90 days and settle on a final number by March 12, 2008. However, it also is soliciting comments on alternate standards, including keeping the current one or going down to .060 parts per million.

Environmentalists criticized the EPA's decision to consider keeping the current standard, noting that the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee has said the standard should be no higher than .070 parts per million.

That's also the health standard California established independently last year, though the state's standard has no regulatory impact.

"The science overwhelmingly supports closing the door on the current standard once and for all," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Instead of listening to science, the administrator seems to be intent on listening to the wish lists of polluting industries."