Ozone rules cause fog and heat

Washington Post:

The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday limited the allowable amount of smog-forming ozone in the air to 75 parts per billion, a level significantly higher than what the agency's scientific advisers had urged for this key component of unhealthy air pollution.

Administrator Stephen L. Johnson also said he would push Congress to rewrite the nearly 37-year-old Clean Air Act to allow regulators to take into consideration the cost and feasibility of controlling pollution when making decisions about air quality, something that is currently prohibited by the law. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled that the government needed to base the ozone standard strictly on protecting public health, with no regard to cost.

The new smog rules -- one of the most important environmental decisions facing the Bush administration in the president's final year in office -- will be a major factor in determining the quality of the air Americans will breathe for at least a decade. The standards, which are aimed at protecting both public health and welfare, are designed to limit the amount of nitrogen oxides and other chemical compounds released into the air by vehicles, manufacturing facilities and power plants. In sunlight, the pollutants form ozone.

Johnson said he did "what was required by the law and the recent scientific evidence," but his decision to set a lower but still less-restrictive limit than what the EPA's advisory committees had recommended sparked a backlash from Democratic lawmakers, public health advocates and his own independent advisers.

With Democrats in control of Congress, the proposal to rewrite the Clean Air Act appears to face long odds. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called the move "outrageous," adding in a statement, "The Bush Administration would have us replace clean air standards driven by science with standards based on the interests of polluters."

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Barbara Boxer continues to burnish her reputation as a mental light weight. The Director of the Center for Natural Resources in Texas had a very different take on the new regulations. Kathleen Hartnett White said:

“The new 75-part-per-billion ozone standard announced tonight by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency relies on flawed science to stymie the Texas economy. Many leading scientists and medical doctors have testified and submitted formal comments that this new standard will not provide any health benefits beyond today’s 85-part-per-billion standard.

“With today’s decision, the Austin, San Antonio, Tyler/Longview, and El Paso regions will join Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston/Galveston in non-attainment status. The new standard could quadruple the number of counties across the country in non-attainment status, including all Texas counties east of IH-35.

“Ozone is only produced in the presence of sunlight and heat. Some rural counties, particularly behind the ‘Pine Curtain’, have naturally occurring ozone levels above the new standard. Eliminating all the industrial activity associated with the Houston/Galveston Ship Channel would not even get that region’s ozone levels to the current standard.

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Natural Ozone production like natural global warming is of no consequence to the control freaks in the Democrat party. Barbara Boxer hasn't a clue when it comes to ozone production in Texas. If anything she would just like to use it as an excuse to control businesses in Texas and strangle the energy sector.