EPA Delays Again, Will Re-Propose New Smog Standards

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday that it is delaying for the third time a final rule on smog limits.

Proposed at the beginning of this year the new limits on harmful pollutants, including mercury and soot, were slated to go into effect in August 2010. They would have limited ground-level pollutants to 60 and 70 parts per billion measured over eight hours.

Now the Agency says it needs until July 2011 to "re-propose the rules based on a full assessment of information received since the rules were proposed"

EPA has estimated that for every $5 spent on reducing these pollutants, the public will see $12 in health and other benefits. 

But industry groups opposed the proposed rules on the grounds that they have already spent billions of dollars cleaning up their operations.

EPA said in a statement: "Industry groups and others offered this information during the public comment period after EPA proposed the rule. After reviewing the data and the more than 4,800 public comments, the agency believes it is appropriate to issue a revised proposal that reflects the new data and allows for additional public comment."

Frank O’Donnell, of Clean Air Watch, told Reuters: "This is a bitter pill to swallow. It is hard to avoid the impression that EPA is running scared from the incoming Congress."

The EPA is under court order to issue toxic air emission standards for industrial boilers by January 16, 2011. This is because the EPA did not update the standards, as required by the Clean Air Act, under President Bush. 

The National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA), which represents the state authorities that manage air pollution in all fifty states, released a report Wednesday that debunks what they say is a "highly misleading industry study" on the proposed standards. The report says that the claims of job loss and economic harm in the industry report–which was sponsored by the Council of Industrial Boilers Owners (CIBO)–are based on distortions and omissions.

The NACAA report is available at the link below (pdf).