EPA to tighten air quality standards

Good.

Federal regulators signaled Wednesday that they would abandon Bush-era limits on smog pollution that scientists said didn’t go far enough to protect public health.

Amid concerns that the current rules don’t adhere to the federal Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency will propose tighter nationwide limits on ozone, or smog, by late December.

“This is one of the most important protection measures we can take to safeguard our health and our environment,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. “Reconsidering these standards and ensuring acceptable levels of ground-level ozone could cut health care costs and make our cities healthier, safer places to live, work and play.”

The tougher stance will likely have a profound effect on Texas, which could see more than 25 counties out of compliance with stricter, science-based limits on smog. Houston, for one, has never met federal standards despite improved air quality in recent years.

I want to pause here to note that according to the story’s sidebar, Houston has a deadline of 2019 – that would be ten years from now – to comply with the EPA’s clean air standards of 1997 – that would be twelve years ago. And that 1997 standard of 80 parts per billion is less strict than the 2008 standard of 75 ppb that was considered too lenient by environmentalists. Just a little perspective to keep in mind here.

The EPA reduced the amounts of allowable ozone, the principal ingredient of smog, in March 2008 after many scientists and medical groups had concluded the current standard, set in 1997, was no longer safe.

The current limit is 75 parts per billion, or 75 molecules of ozone out of every billion molecules of air. The previous standard allowed 84 ppb, which the agency’s scientists and children’s health experts said did not protect against aggravated asthma, heart attacks, respiratory problems and even premature death.

The scientists said the threshold should be as low as 60 ppb and no more than 70 ppb to protect millions of people, particularly the elderly and young children.

Then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said research showed the current standard to be lacking. But the science did not support a standard of 60 ppb or show enough benefit between 70 and 75 ppb.

Johnson’s decision came after intense lobbying efforts by industry groups opposed to stricter standards. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which is responsible for reducing smog throughout the state, also urged him not to tighten the standard because of the potential economic cost, among other reasons.

Regions that fail to meet federal deadlines for ozone standards can lose funding for transportation projects, such as highways.

Jed Anderson, a Houston attorney who specializes in air quality, predicted that new, stricter standards will be hard to achieve because most of Houston’s ozone problem is beyond local control.

Which is why we need a TCEQ that actually enforces the law, and why Mayor White threatened to contest the permits of polluters outside of Houston that were and are fouling our air. Dallas has the same issues with cement plants in Ellis County. Without an effective compliance mechanism, there’s no incentive for these guys to clean up their act. I realize that this is only part of the problem, and that as long as Houston is as car-centric as it is it will be a challenge to meet the EPA standard, but we won’t even attain 1997 standards if we can’t get the big polluters to do their part.

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