Pollution Standards Too Weak, EPA Says

Published: Jun 22, 2007

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 summer sun and heat.

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

"EPA measures smog by calculating the concentration of ozone molecules in the atmosphere during an eight-hour period. The current standard is 0.084 parts per million. EPA is proposing reducing that to 0.070 to 0.075 parts per million.

The agency will take public comment for 90 days and settle on a number by March 12. However, it also is soliciting comments on alternate standards, including keeping the current one or going down to 0.060 parts per million.