In a major decision that will reduce air pollution across California for years to come but cost billions of dollars to implement, the Obama administration on Thursday rolled out tougher new health standards for ground level ozone, the main component of smog.
“While the days are gone when cities like Los Angeles were so smoggy that people had trouble seeing across the street, science tells us that ozone is still making people sick and we still have a lot work to do,” said Gina McCarthy, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA said the rules will cost industry and motorists $1.4 billion a year to meet, but prevent 230,000 childhood asthma attacks and 660 premature deaths a year nationwide by 2025, saving between $2.9 billion and $5.9 billion a year in health care and other costs. Republicans and industry leaders called the new regulations costly and unreasonable while Democrats, environmental groups and health advocates complained the new standards don’t go far enough.
The Bay Area barely meets current federal health standards for smog, but it will need to do more to comply with the tougher new rules, experts said.
“All the low-hanging fruit is gone,” said Eric Stevenson, director of meteorology, measurement and rules for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco. “But we are going to look at everything we can to try and get those reductions.”
The Bay Area and most regions of the U.S. will have until 2025 to meet the new health targets. The San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles basin, with the worst smog in the nation, will be given until 2037. Failure to meet the standards can result in a loss of federal highway funds.
Under the rules, the EPA lowered the federal ozone standard from the current 75 parts per billion to 70.
So far in 2015, there have been five days when Bay Area smog levels exceeded the current standard, but the air has gotten dramatically cleaner over the past 40 years.
In 1974, there were 57 days when the Bay Area air was above the same 75 parts per billion standard, even though the population was lower. That progress came from actions that include a push for catalytic converters, a requirement for smog checks, bans on leaded gasoline crackdowns on smog-spewing smokestacks.
The new EPA rules are likely to mean tougher regulations on factories, power plants and other polluters in the Bay Area over the next decade, experts said Thursday, along with more carpool programs, state funding to expand electric car chargers, “Spare the Air” campaigns and stepped-up enforcement against air polluters.
Other parts of the state where smog levels are much worse, such as the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles basin, are certain to see more extensive regulations and crackdowns on polluters. So far this year, smog levels have topped the current standards on 73 days in the San Joaquin Valley and on 81 days in the South Coast air district, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. “This rule will definitely be a challenge. There’s no sugarcoating it, particularly to the L.A. area and the San Joaquin area,” said Jared Blumenfeld, regional EPA administrator in San Francisco.
Because California has been putting in place rules over the past 10 years to reduce greenhouse gases — such as solo carpool lane privileges for electric cars and a state law requiring 33 percent of electricity to come from solar, wind and other cleaner energy sources by 2020 — one side effect will be less soot and smog in the years to come. State air pollution officials said Thursday that they see that trend accelerating, and they support the Obama rules.
“Even as the new ozone standard gets tougher to attain, California will continue to make progress by employing cleaner technology and fuels,” said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the state Air Resources Board.
Not everyone cheered the news, however.
The announcement was criticized by environmentalists and health groups, who said the rules don’t go far enough.
“The Obama Administration has fallen short of setting a smog standard that fully protects the health of our families,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, based in San Francisco, “making this decision a missed opportunity to clean up our air.”
Health groups, including the American Lung Association, American Heart Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, all had pushed for a standard as low as 60 parts per billion.
Harold Wimmer, president of the American Lung Association, noted that the EPA estimated that the 60 parts per billion standard would have prevented up to 1.8 million asthma attacks in children and 7,900 premature deaths nationwide.
“Unsafe levels of ozone can cause difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing and asthma attacks, and can result in a trip to the emergency room and admission to the hospital,” he said. “Given the health threats from ozone, greater health protections are clearly needed.”
Industry groups countered that the current standard, set by the Bush administration in 2008, is good enough and the new one is overkill.
“Make no mistake, the new ozone standard will inflict pain on companies that build things in America and destroy job opportunities for American workers,” said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
And politicians split among geographic and party lines.
U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, who is likely the next Speaker of the House, said Republicans will hold hearings in Congress on the rules, which he said will “be impossible for communities like the Central Valley to reach,” and “will also punish those communities for not reaching them with fines.”
Minutes later, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer called the rules “a step in the right direction,” but added “I am disappointed a more protective standard was not set.”
Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN
