EPA Will Upgrade Bush Smog Standards to Protect Health, Environment

Smog, or ground-level ozone, forms when emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from industrial facilities, power plants, landfills and motor vehicles mix in the presence of sunlight.

"EPA is stepping up to protect Americans from one of the most persistent and widespread pollutants we face," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, announcing the proposal today.

Children are at the greatest risk from ground-level ozone, because their lungs are still developing, they are most likely to be active outdoors, and they are more likely than adults to have asthma. Adults with asthma or other lung diseases, and older adults are also sensitive to ozone. The EPA says even healthy people who work or play outdoors are at risk.

"Smog in the air we breathe poses a very serious health threat, especially to children and individuals suffering from asthma and lung disease. It dirties our air, clouds our cities, and drives up our health care costs across the country," Jackson said. "Using the best science to strengthen these standards is a long overdue action that will help millions of Americans breathe easier and live healthier."

The agency is proposing to set the "primary" standard, which protects public health, at a level between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million measured over eight hours.

EPA is also proposing to set a separate "secondary" standard, which protects the environment. This seasonal standard is designed to protect plants and trees from damage occurring from repeated ozone exposure, which can reduce tree growth, damage leaves, and increase susceptibility to tree diseases.

Smog obscures the skyline of Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Peyton Chung)

The agency is scheduled to issue final standards in August 2010.

Last September Jackson announced that the agency would reconsider the existing smog standards, set at 0.075 ppm in March 2008 by the Bush-era EPA.

As part of its reconsideration, EPA conducted a review of the science that guided the 2008 decision, including more than 1,700 scientific studies and public comments from the 2008 rulemaking process. EPA also reviewed the findings of the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which recommended standards in the ranges proposed today.

In March 2008, then EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson overrode the unanimous recommendation of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee that the primary and secondary standards should be between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million. He set a single standard of 0.075 ppm.

The committee unanimously recommended that science compelled a distinct "biologically-relevant" ozone standard to protect against the adverse cumulative ecological effects of ground-level ozone on vegetation.

Immediately after Johnson's decision, a March 13, 2008 White House memo to Johnson was released revealing that President George W. Bush had determined that the national ozone standard must be identical for health and ecological effects.

Today, Administrator Jackson said that depending on the level of the final standard, health benefits between $13 billion and $100 billion could be expected. Estimated costs of implementing the proposal range from $19 billion to $90 billion.

Jackson said the proposed standards would help reduce premature deaths, aggravated asthma, bronchitis cases, hospital and emergency room visits and days when people miss work or school because of ozone-related symptoms.

The National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents state and local agencies, supports the stricter standards because they will save lives, said NACAA Executive Director Bill Becker.

"Depending on which end of the proposed range of standards EPA decides upon, anywhere from 1,500 to 12,000 premature deaths could be avoided each year," Becker said. "Such compelling statistics illustrate clearly the profound benefits of more protective air quality standards. Though the task of putting new, better standards into practice won't be easy, it will most certainly be worth it."

"State and local air quality officials are fully aware of the daunting challenges implementation of such new standards will pose. However, as stewards of the air that citizens of this nation breathe, we stand ready to face, and overcome, those challenges," said Becker.

"EPA's proposed standards promise clean air protections that reach from the nation's urban neighborhoods and communities to our rural forests and croplands," said Cal Baier-Anderson, PhD, a toxicologist with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. "Children are especially vulnerable to ozone air pollution. For millions of children, high pollution days make it difficult to attend school, to play outside and to simply breathe."

Said attorney David Farren with the Southern Environmental Law Center, "Reducing ozone pollution by as little as five parts per billion can mean a huge difference for thousands of asthma sufferers and others. We especially look forward to working with the major metro areas in the Carolinas to develop strategies to address their disproportionate levels of transportation-related pollution."

The American Lung Association says, "EPA scientists and independent outside scientific experts agree that the old standards are too weak to protect against asthma attacks, emergency room visits, and premature death, while oil industry lobbyists have already been to the White House to complain."

The American Petroleum Institute is among those organizations who complained to the White House about the proposed standards. Today, the API issued a statement of opposition, saying, "The action lacks scientific justification."

"EPA acknowledges the newer studies on ozone 'do not materially change any of the broad scientific conclusions regarding the health effects of exposure.' Given that conclusion, there is absolutely no basis for EPA to propose changing the ozone standards promulgated by the EPA Administrator in 2008. To do so is an obvious politicization of the air quality standard setting process that could mean unnecessary energy cost increases, job losses and less domestic oil and natural gas development and energy security," the API states.

"This is a familiar pattern," the Environmental Defense Fund said in a statement today. "Air quality standards have always been met with claims of economic demise. But then technology catches up. Innovative programs are implemented. Further research bolsters the initial decision. In the end, costs are a fraction of initial claims, and everyone breathes cleaner air."

EPA will take public comment for 60 days after the proposed rule is published in the Federal Register. The agency will hold three public hearings on the proposal: February 2, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia and in Houston, Texas; and February 4, 2010 in Sacramento, California.

Ozone (O3) is a gas composed of three oxygen atoms and has the same chemical structure whether it occurs miles above the Earth or at ground-level. It can be good or bad, depending on its location in the atmosphere.

In the Earth's lower atmosphere, ground-level ozone is considered bad. Many urban areas tend to have high levels of ground-level ozone, but even rural areas are subject to increased ozone levels because wind carries ozone and the pollutants that form it hundreds of miles from their original sources.

So-called good ozone occurs naturally in the stratosphere from 10 to 30 miles above the Earth's surface and forms a layer that protects life on Earth from the Sun's harmful rays.

Click here for EPA background information on ground-level ozone.

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