EPA, Stop! Ozone Rule Opposition Grows

Posted July 31, 2015 at 11:38 am

TRSA and our business coalition partners recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama and members of Congress, urging the president to instruct the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to retain the current 75 ppb ground-level ozone standard.

In the coming weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will send to the Office of Management and Budget a new National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone that will be among the most expensive regulations in our nation’s history. Just a few years ago, the president ordered the EPA to abandon a similar rule, citing the need to reduce regulatory burdens in a recovering economy.

The TRSA/coalition letter stated that, “To date, efforts to reduce ozone are an environmental success story. Ozone levels have improved by 33% since 1980 and will improve even more in coming years. Market-driven innovations and dozens of existing policies to improve fuel economy, increase energy efficiency and reduce emissions from stationary and mobile sources will drive further air-quality improvements over the next decade, and beyond.” The letter adds that, “We are bound by the limits of technological feasibility, and this regulation mandates controls that even the EPA admits are unknown. When regulations push beyond the achievable, we lose the ability to innovate, create jobs and unlock the next generation of technologies. The need for balanced government policies and reasonable flexibilities has never been greater, and no single regulation threatens to disrupt this balance more than EPA’s ozone rule.” Click here to read the letter. In addition to TRSA, the number of cosigning organizations runs to nearly 3.5 pages.

Efforts to stop the EPA's proposal to tighten the ozone standard are gaining traction on Capitol Hill as well. On Tuesday, House of Representatives members sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy asking the agency to retain the existing ozone standard. The effort was led by Reps. Bob Latta (R-OH) and Gene Green (D-TX) and received the bipartisan support of 136 Members of Congress. Click here to read the letter.

The agency must finalize the standard by Oct. 1.

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