REDUCING DANGEROUS POLLUTION—Ozone levels in Texas cities such as Dallas (pictured here) frequently exceed the limits advised by health professionals.

EPA Weighs New Air Pollution Standards

This fall, TexPIRG will have an opportunity to influence an important policy decision regarding air pollution.

Under the Clean Air Act, EPA must set air quality standards for ozone at levels that protect public health, review these standards every five years and update them based on new research. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that protecting public health must be the sole basis for ozone standards.

In response to this ruling and a 2003 lawsuit from the American Lung Association, the EPA will be revising its ozone standards, currently at 0.08 parts per million (ppm).

The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, a group of scientists tasked with advising EPA, has recommended that new levels be set somewhere between 0.06 and 0.07 ppm.

“The EPA is under mounting pressure from both the Bush administration and industrial lobbies to change the ozone standards as little as possible,” said Federal Clean Air Advocate Emily Figdor. “That’s why it’s so crucial for TexPIRG, its supporters and its allies to stand up and let EPA know that these standards have to be set at a level that protects public health.”

EPA has focused its considerations on changing levels to between 0.07 and 0.075 ppm, though they haven’t ruled out adjusting down to 0.06 ppm or making no change at all.

This fall, TexPIRG will be joining a coalition of groups, experts and concerned citizens who will testify at EPA’s public hearing on ozone in Houston. TexPIRG will also be working with the media in the lead-up to the hearings to ensure that the public interest is well-represented.