The White House spooked health and environmental groups during a routine bureaucratic process that gave them impression the Obama administration may not be willing to fight with Republicans over an upcoming standard on smog.
Their concerns grew Wednesday when the administration did not mention a provision blocking a forthcoming ozone standard as one of the several reasons President Obama would veto the House Interior and Environment spending bill.
“[T]his White House document is extremely disturbing,” Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, told the Washington Examiner in an email, though he added he hoped it was the product of “sloppy staff work.”
Paul Billings, senior vice president of advocacy and education, told the Examiner that he approached Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy at a Tuesday event to express his concern over the omission.
“I was disappointed and surprised not to see any mention of ozone,” he said.
The White House got the message by Wednesday afternoon, when it wrote a blog post on the subject.
“Updating national standards for ozone pollution, which is particularly harmful for children and adults with asthma, would, if finalized as proposed, prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospital admissions and prevent up to a million lost school days each year. These are just two of many provisions in the bill that would force EPA to ignore science at the expense of public health,” wrote Dan Utech, the president’s climate and energy adviser, and Ali Zaidi, associate director for natural resources, energy and science at the Office of Management and Budget.
That seemed to satisfy groups who had been worried earlier in the day, as Billings said it “sent a very clear signal” that the administration endorsed the arguments he and others have been making — that crimping smog would help reduce heart and lung ailments that cost Americans billions in medical fees every year.
The skepticism, however, comes from the smog standard’s tortuous history. Obama yanked a previous attempt to tighten the standard in 2011 amid a re-election campaign and industry pressure over the economic cost it said the rule would impose. Many groups suspect that the administration is less committed to ozone because it’s not viewed as part of his climate legacy.
“We certainly haven’t heard much from the administration, from the White House on this rule recently. But we know it’s something they know about, something they care about,” Greg Bertelsen, director of energy and resources policy with the National Association of Manufacturers, told the Examiner. “We know it’s a rule they’ve recognized as potentially economically damaging.”
Republicans are privately confident that they can persuade the White House to delay or avoid implementation of a stricter ozone limit if the budget process heads into a broad negotiation involving multiple spending bills. The prospects of an “omnibus” spending package is increasing given Senate Democrats’ insistence on blocking individual spending bills over opposition to spending caps.
Industry groups hope the EPA will decide against issuing a more stringent standard or that Congress would pass legislation to restrict the rule, though Obama would likely veto such a bill.
Bertelsen said he wasn’t reading too much into the ozone omission in the White House veto threat as to whether that means the administration would be willing to budge in a wide-ranging budget deal.
“At this point in the game, it’s too soon to say,” Bertelsen said, though he added, “In the past we have seen these types of spending bills produce relief.”
The EPA must finish the rule by Oct. 1 under a court ruling, though it isn’t require to offer a stiffer limit. It has proposed lowering the ozone limit from 75 parts per billion to 70 or 65, though it also is taking comment on a 60 ppb standard as the independent panel of scientists that advises the EPA says that amount would offer the greatest benefits for public health.
Industry groups have waged a battle against lowering the ozone limit, calling it potentially the most expensive regulation in history. Companies in counties that don’t meet the standard would find it harder to get permits to expand factories and other industrial facilities. The EPA also could revoke federal highway funds for prolonged “non-attainment” with the standard.
A National Association of Manufacturers study that showed a 65 ppb-level would cost the economy $140 billion annually, though the study did not consider any possible benefits from the rule. The EPA, however, says the tighter standard would produce up to $38 billion of health benefits in 2025, with a 65 ppb standard costing $15 billion.
McCarthy mentioned the ozone standard Tuesday in a Washington speech to the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, saying, “Of course, we have the new ozone standard that we are revisiting.”
