EPA Proposes Tighter Restrictions On Smog-Causing Emissions
The changes could cost industry $90 billion, and substantially improve Americans' health In a move to curb smog, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed the tightest regulations ever on ground-ozone-causing emissions. The new standards would replace 2008 ozone regulations implemented by the Bush administration that allowed so much smog emission that environmental advocates took the EPA to court, arguing that the weak emissions regulation didn't actually protect people's health. The new standards would limit the amount of ozone a person could be exposed to in a given area, over eight hours, to between 0.060 and 0.070 parts per million. The Bush administration EPA pegged that number at 0.075 parts per million. The EPA also wants a secondary standard that would vary by season, in an effort to protect trees and plants from the damaging effects of ozone. In the summer, ozone levels rise, and ozone clouds drift out of cities...