Large areas in the nation still have air pollution levels that hurt too many people. Scientists agree that the most widespread air pollutant, ozone smog, threatens public health at levels deemed to be safe just 10 years ago.

Congress requires the EPA to take specific steps to protect all Americans from those dangers. First step—strengthen the official limit on the amount of ozone smog in the air. Second step—help the states clean up pollution by requiring cleaner diesel engines and power plants. Despite failing to set safe levels for particle pollution last year, the EPA still has opportunities to protect public health—if they will take them.

EPA Should Strengthen the Ozone Standard
In October 2006, 22 of the nation’s top scientists sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on ozone air pollution, commonly known as smog. They had served since 2005 on an elite panel, known as the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, to review the most up-to-date research on ozone science. They had the formal responsibility both to tell the EPA what they thought the research showed about the health effects and to advise where the official limits, called the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, should be set on ozone. The Administrator of EPA must set the level of ozone that he considers safe for the public to breathe, including those people most affected by its harm. In effect, science advisors help the Administrator determine the goal for all the states to meet to have clean air.

The EPA last reviewed and tightened the ozone standard in 1997. But new research has revealed that ozone may be more dangerous than had been thought: it might even be deadly.

What the scientists told the EPA could not be clearer. “[The 1997 ozone standard] needs to be substantially reduced to protect human health,” they wrote in an October 2006 letter, “particularly in sensitive subpopulations” such as children, people with lung disease and seniors. “There is no scientific justification for retaining the existing [standard].”¹ To drive home the point, they repeated this statement several times.

EPA’s career staff scientists agreed with the Scientific Advisory Committee. In a report issued in late January 2007, the staff scientists recommended that the Administrator consider setting the limit at levels well below the current standards, which are 0.08 parts per million of ozone.²

EPA must adopt more protective standards for ozone
The Clean Air Act gives the EPA Administrator the authority to decide where to set the standards but requires that he set them based solely on the requirement to protect public health with “an adequate margin of safety.” In 1997 polluters challenged that authority all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2002 the Court ruled unanimously that public health was the sole basis for setting the standard.³

On or before June 20, 2007, the EPA Administrator is scheduled to propose an ozone standard; he will then issue a final decision on the standard by March 12, 2008. This deadline is set as a requirement of the successful legal action that the American Lung Association took in 2002 to force the EPA to start the current review process. The Lung Association has been shepherding the review step-by-step since the EPA originally agreed to a schedule in 2003 to complete the review. Over the next year, the Lung Association will take every step possible to persuade the Administrator to set an ozone standard that fully protects public health.

EPA failed to set protective particle standards
Just last year, the EPA completed a similar process for fine particle pollution, PM_2.5, also a result of the Lung Association’s legal challenges. Unfortunately, the Administrator failed to adequately protect public health in setting the standards for fine particle pollution. The Administrator did tighten the daily standard for fine particle pollution, although the Lung Association had urged an even more protective standard.⁴ In his most far-reaching and disappointing decision, the Administrator retained the weak 1997 standard for year-round exposure to this deadly air pollutant, despite clear evidence of harm at lower levels. The American Lung Association, several environmental groups and 13 states sued the EPA in December 2006 to force a review of that decision.

Why the standards matter
Although they seem like highly technical jumbles of numbers and terminology, the national air quality standards make a difference in the lives of millions of Americans.

The EPA uses the national air quality standards to officially determine which counties have too much air pollution. The Clean Air Act gives the states the responsibility for cleaning up and making sure pollution levels in each county stay under these limits. The states draw up plans to cut pollution, working with the public, industries, businesses and local governments to find the best ways to remove pollution in their area. Some states, such as California and some northeast states, have taken aggressive steps to address large sources of pollution, e.g., regulating emissions from automobiles or emerging sources such as outdoor wood boilers.

Thanks to this process, emissions in the U.S. have dropped by approximately 53 percent since 1970 when Congress wrote the Clean Air Act. These reductions have not hampered growth in the economy or even in the number of miles people drive their cars. These reductions came despite the population’s growing by 42 percent as well.⁵ But the overwhelming evidence of the harm from air pollution compels us to do more to protect the millions of Americans who still breathe unhealthful levels where they live, work and play.

Cleaner air helps those most at risk
Cleaner air serves everyone, but millions benefit more because they are more easily harmed by pollution. One study shows how quickly improving air quality helps some of those most at risk. In 1996 Atlanta, Georgia, hosted the Olympic Games for the first time. To reduce the city’s notorious traffic jams during the games, local officials encouraged people to work at home, carpool, and take advantage of the temporarily expanded public transit network. One unanticipated effect was that the city’s high ozone levels dropped during those two hot summer weeks by over 25 percent. Researchers studied hospital and Medicaid records and found that children with asthma—especially poor children—had markedly fewer problems with their asthma that required medical attention during those two weeks. Hospital admissions for children with asthma on Medicaid dropped by as much as 40 percent.⁶ When the Games ended, traffic jams returned to normal levels. Unfortunately, so did ozone levels and hospital visits due to asthma.