News Tip: EPA Ozone Standards Should Be Based on Science, Not Economics, Duke Expert Says

The announcement Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it will enact less stringent ground-level ozone standards than those recommended by its scientific advisory committee, "continues the administration's practice of not listening to scientific input," says the dean of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.

"The difference between the administration's action and the recommendations of the panel will mean many more sick days, school absences and deaths," said Dean William L. Chameides, an environmental chemist.

He served as chair of the National Academy/National Research Council committee mandated by Congress in 2001 to review air quality management in the United States.

"The EPA's standard-setting procedure is supposed to be based on science, not economics," Chameides said. "After a thorough review of the issue, our National Academy committee concluded that scientific input is central to the standard-setting procedure."

Chameides also is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was a member of the EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors in 2001-03.

"While [the EPA] should be applauded for lowering the standard, it is indeed unfortunate and troubling that they chose not to follow the input of their scientific panel to lower it even further," Chameides said. "The scientific community has spoken. We need to listen to the scientists."

The EPA set the ozone standard at 75 parts per billion (ppb), despite the unanimous recommendation of its scientific advisory committee to set the standard no higher than 70 ppb and to consider a limit as low as 60 ppb.

The federal standard is stated in terms of average concentrations of ozone at ground level over an eight-hour period. 

Many public health officials have been pushing for standards to be lowered to about 60 ppb, and that EPA scientific evidence indicates some people can be harmed at levels as low as 40 ppb.

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson also said he would push Congress to rewrite the nearly 37-year-old Clean Air Act to allow regulators to consider the cost and feasibility of controlling pollution when making decisions about air quality, something that is currently prohibited by the law, according to the Washington Post.