WASHINGTON (AP) - Five years after issuing a tough new regulation to cut smog around the nation, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed Wednesday, Nov. 13 on a way to finally put it in place, starting in April 2004.
The EPA, in a proposed court settlement with environmental groups, said it would resume asking states and tribes to submit a list of counties that would not be able to meet the requirement for limiting ozone, a major component of smog.
The Clinton administration had begun that process, but industry groups brought it to a halt by challenging the new ozone standard all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the new standard in February 2001.
Environmental groups sued in federal court this year, saying the EPA still wasn’t taking steps to implement the new standard.
The 1997 standard limited ozone to 0.08 parts per million, instead of 0.12 parts per million, a standard issued in 1979. It also required averaging measurements of the pollution over eight hours, instead of one hour, to better reflect actual air quality.
According to EPA data as of 2000, more than 340 counties were not meeting the standard, mostly in the eastern United States, along the Gulf of Mexico and in the Southwest.
EPA spokesman Joe Martyak said that after allowing the public to comment on the proposed consent decree entered in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the so-called "eight-hour ozone standard" could take effect by April 15, 2004, assuming the court approves the agreement.
"This deadline gives states and tribes ample time to update their recommendations," Martyak said. "EPA believes it’s important to implement the eight-hour standard as soon as possible. We’re pleased to reach this agreement, so we can focus on the designations instead of spending time fighting lawsuits."
The deadline also roughly coincides with EPA’s target date for designating areas to cut emissions of fine particles — those 2.5 microns or smaller, about 1/20 the width of a human hair — from sources like heavy-duty diesel trucks, wood stoves and construction sites, according to Martyak.
"The states and the tribes will be able to develop their strategies for reducing both pollutants at the same time," he said.
Vickie Patton, a senior attorney for Environmental Defense, one of the environmental groups that sued the EPA, said the proposed settlement is "enormously important because it shifts what has been a long-standing debate over whether we should have these standards to a process of finally beginning to accomplish what the standards are designed to do."
She said most states probably would take about three years to put in place specific programs such as diesel engine retrofits, vehicle inspections and lowered industrial emissions to reduce ground-level ozone that causes respiratory ailments, lung damage and other illnesses.
