EPA Tightens Ozone Limits — But Less Than Expected

Determined to cut down on smog that chokes the nation’s skies, the Obama administration on Thursday finalized new limits on ozone — a pollutant known to worsen asthma, lung disease and heart conditions.

But the new limits are weaker than some observers anticipated, suggesting that fierce critics like the state of Texas and a range of industries proved at least partially successful in their loud push against the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s latest effort to crack down on the pollution wafting from factories, power plants and vehicle tailpipes.

The new standard shrinks the previous 75 parts per billion ozone standard — which the EPA’s advisers have called far too high — to 70 parts per billion. That’s more lenient than the 60-parts-per-billion that standard environmental groups initially called for, and it’s at the top of the range the agency proposed last November.

At that time, before gathering hundreds of thousands of public comments and holding public meetings on the plan, the agency proposed limits in a range of 65-70 parts per billion. Republicans and industry groups trotted out studies portending economic doom.

Pushing back against any efforts to lower the standard, Texas environmental regulators paid a private firm $1.65 million to poke holes in the science behind the new threshold.

Bucking the scientific community’s consensus, those Texas regulators suggested that tightening limits on ozone — which forms when emissions from cars and coal plants mix with other airborne compounds in sunlight — would not improve public health.

Though not as strict as some expected, the new standard will affect plenty of Texas communities.

More than 100 million people in the U.S. — including those in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio — live in areas that don’t even meet the current standards. Some communities have seen improvement, but health problems persist. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area alone, more than 1.1 million people struggle with asthma, heart disease and lung disease.

El Paso, Austin and swaths of East Texas that may have struggled to meet a 65 parts-per-billion standard appear to be spared under the final rule, which applies to three-year averages.

Some health and environmental groups expressed disappointment in the final rule.

“Smog is a harmful, air pollutant that’s linked to serious lung diseases,” Vickie Patton, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “While the air quality standard announced today is an improvement, it falls short of what is necessary to safeguard healthier, longer lives for our children and for all Americans at risk.”

Neena Satija contributed to this story.