The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to retain national ozone standards at current levels, rejecting calls from environmentalists, scientists, and some states to strengthen the Obama-era limits.
It’s the second time in recent months the Trump administration has spurned tighter air quality limits despite fierce outcry that scientific evidence is building to suggest that people are exposed to health risks at pollution levels lower than what the national standards protect against.
In April, the EPA declined to strengthen standards for industrial soot pollution despite advice from the agency’s own staff that more stringent standards were needed to protect public health.
“Current scientific information continues to support the conclusion that the primary standard established in 2015 protects public health with an adequate margin of safety,” EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler told reporters when announcing the proposal Monday. He added that includes protecting the health of at-risk populations, which include the elderly, children with asthma, and outdoor workers.
Wheeler also touted air pollution reductions during the Trump administration, saying ozone concentrations have fallen 4% between 2017 and 2019 even while the economy grew.
Ground-level ozone is the primary contributor to smog, and it can cause trouble breathing, increase the frequency of asthma attacks, and damage lungs, according to the EPA.
Environmentalists slammed the decision, which, once finalized, could stick around for years, even if a new administration were to be elected in November and attempt to undertake a new review.
“It locks us into dirtier air for years,” said Gretchen Goldman, research director for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy. “This was a huge missed opportunity.”
The EPA is required to review national air quality limits for ozone, fine particle pollution, and other air pollutants every five years. In 2015, the Obama administration tightened the ozone standards from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion over objections from industry groups.
The American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other groups have called on the Trump EPA to keep the Obama-era limits, arguing that making the standards stricter would layer additional costly regulatory requirements on businesses, and it welcomed the proposal.
“EPA’s proposed decision appropriately retains the existing protective standards while preserving the manufacturing sector’s ability to continue critical economic production, especially during this time,” the American Chemistry Council said in a statement. The chemical lobby also praised the EPA for recognizing “that newly available evidence does not call into question the adequacy of the current standards.”
Environmentalists, however, say the Obama administration’s scientific review in 2015 had already demonstrated significant harm to people, especially vulnerable populations such as elderly people and children with asthma, at ozone concentrations as low as 60 parts per billion.
They also accuse the Trump administration of truncating the review process and shutting out scientific advisers with the proper expertise. The EPA declined to create an independent panel of outside scientific experts to assist with the ozone standards review, as has been typical practice, and disbanded a similar panel that had been created to help review fine particle pollution standards.
“The nation was deprived of the scientific conversation we should have had on ozone,” UCS’s Goldman said.
Without an independent panel to help review the standards, the EPA was left with only the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which Goldman acknowledged didn’t have adequate expertise.
Nonetheless, 6 out of 7 members of the committee recommended that the EPA retain the current standards without changes. EPA staff also suggested the agency maintain the current levels.
Ann Weeks, senior counsel and legal director with the Clean Air Task Force, said the EPA’s failure to create an expert panel to help with the review illustrates how “outcome-driven” the Trump administration’s review was.
“If they had decided upfront that they don’t want to propose any changes to the standards, why would they need a panel?” she said.
Wheeler, though, defended the EPA’s process, saying the agency made the decision to cut the outside panel review to meet the Clean Air Act’s five-year deadline. That additional review added one to two years to the process, he said.
“We had to streamline the review,” Wheeler said, adding the CASAC members were still able to seek additional help from outside experts or EPA staff if they had questions, both for the ozone and fine particle pollution standard reviews.
“It was a very back-and-forth process between the CASAC members and the EPA career scientists, as well as CASAC members and other scientists,” Wheeler said. “I believe they have put forward very strong recommendations that the agency is following.”
