The last time new ozone standards were set was back in 1997 — at 84 parts per billion. In 2006, the EPA reviewed the science on ozone and health, which had advanced considerably over the years: It wasn’t until the 2000s, for instance, that researchers realized ground-level ozone might actually be killing people, not just causing respiratory problems. Realizing that the old standards were woefully out of date, EPA scientists recommended a new level of 60 to 70 parts per billion. The Bush administration, however, decided to go with a less-stringent level of 75 parts per billion in its final rules, issued in 2008.
Groups such as the American Lung Association quickly filed a lawsuit to stop the Bush rules, which they claimed were too weak and would lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths and cases of respiratory disease. After Obama got elected, however, the new EPA said it basically agreed with the critics and would issue stronger rules by August 2010. At that point, the ALA agreed to hold off on its lawsuit. “We said, that sounds reasonable to us,” says Paul Billings, the ALA’s vice-president for policy and advocacy. “We basically trusted their intentions.”
But August 2010 rolled around. Still no rules. The EPA asked for a further extension. Then October. Then December. Still nothing. Then the EPA said it wanted to go back and look at the science again, just to double-check. Sure enough, EPA’s scientific review board said that a standard of 60 to 70 parts per billion was the most cost-effective way to protect public health. And EPA administrator Lisa Jackson announced that the final rules would be in line with the science.
Industry groups, obviously, weren’t pleased with this. They noted that complying with a stricter standard could cost them anywhere from $19 billion to $90 billion per year by 2020. (The EPA did, however, note that a tougher standard would yield benefits of $13 billion to $100 billion, and that the benefits would outweigh the costs.) Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor dubbed the ozone proposal “possibly the most harmful of all the currently anticipated Obama administration regulations.”
So now, today, the White House announced that it’s not going to have any new rules.
Obviously, this is a sell-out not only of environmental groups, which generally have been partial toward presidential candidate and President Barack Obama, but also of the broad spectrum of the American public, which has to breathe air. Neela Banerjee in the Los Angeles Times notes "The EPA estimates that up to 12,000 lives could be saved annually from heart attacks, lung disease and asthma attacks by implementing the new standards." The decision was announced on the same day as the disappointing and disturbing jobs report, presumably a nod and a wink to the Chamber of Commerce and other interest groups, assuring them that nothing will stand in the way of "job creators" generating the jobs they've so far refused to create (in this country, anyway). An expensive campaign awaits, and these groups, sitting on cash and whining about regulations instead of hiring Americans, are going to be looking to use unspent funds to buy a new, or sitting, president. (A rundown on reactions from the left and right here, from DailyKos.)