EPA Is Expected to Announce Proposal for Stricter Ozone Standards

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce today that current federal standards for limiting harmful ozone air pollution do not adequately protect the public and need to be strengthened.

But the agency's proposal will also leave open the possibility that current standards are adequate and should not be changed, according to people who have been briefed on the document.

Even before the proposal was formally released, the inclusion of the two possibilities left advocates in the long and heated debate over ozone pollution alternately encouraged and worried. Business and industry groups are strongly opposed to any tightening of ozone standards, while supporters of stricter standards note that the EPA's own science advisers voted unanimously in favor of lowering the allowable limits.

EPA spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said yesterday that the agency had not finished deliberations on the document and that reports of what it will contain were "speculation."

Officials from both the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, however, said they have been briefed on the main points and that they include a proposed reduction in allowable ozone from 84 parts per billion to between 70 and 75 parts per billion.

They also said the proposal would include a formal statement that the EPA is willing to hear comments from those who want to maintain the current standard -- suggesting that when the final ozone rule is issued, it might call for no change at all.

"The proposal to lower the ozone levels are a step in the right direction and would better protect the public," said Janice Nolen, vice president for national policy for the American Lung Association. "But allowing continued comments about keeping the current level is an absolutely and seriously bad decision."

The association sued the EPA in 2003 over the agency's failure to do a periodic scientific review of ozone research, as required by the Clean Air Act.

Bryan Brendle, air quality policy director for the National Association of Manufacturers, had the opposite view, saying that lowering the allowable ozone levels would seriously harm the economy while providing little or no health benefit.

"We would adamantly oppose lowering the standard to the level being discussed and would work hard to keep it from happening," he said.

Ozone, commonly known as smog, is a gas that forms in the air when hydrocarbons mix with nitrogen oxides at times of bright sunlight and elevated heat. The components of smog come from power plants, cars, trucks and trains, refineries, gas stations and other industrial sources.

Ozone is known to, exacerbate and perhaps cause, asthma and can lead to shortness of breath, chest pains and lung inflammation. Recent research has suggested that it can shorten the lives of elderly people, children and those with other lung problems.