EPA starts over on smog standards, garnering pushback from environmentalists over delay

The Biden administration will drop its current efforts to evaluate the nation’s smog pollution standards and start again, in what environmentalists are describing as an unnecessary delay. 

In a letter dated Friday to a panel of science advisers, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan said he would restart the agency’s review of regulations for ground-level ozone, a key ingredient in smog. 

The agency first said in 2021 that it would review the Trump administration’s decision not to update the smog pollution regulations. It announced the decision to start over in a press release Monday. 

“After carefully reviewing the advice of the independent scientific panel, I am convinced that a full and complete review of the ozone [standards] is warranted to ensure a thorough and transparent assessment of the latest science,” Regan said in the statement.

But environmentalists said this decision amounted to a needless delay that could result in more people breathing in dangerous pollution in the meantime.

“It’s very disappointing, the delay,” said Raúl García, vice president of policy and legislation at Earthjustice. 

He added that it “begs the question of how many deaths, how many asthma attacks, how many people with heart conditions are going to come out because this decision is now going to be delayed potentially years.”

The standards regulate the amount of ozone, which can be harmful at the ground level, that is considered safe. The standards then inform state actions to reduce pollution below harmful levels, making them a key factor in preventing health problems related to exposure to ozone and smog.

Exposure to this type of pollution can aggravate lung issues, including asthma, emphysema and chronic bronchitis and increase how often asthma attacks occur, the EPA says. According to the United Nations, it has also been linked to premature deaths. 

The EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), a panel of independent advisers, said in June that all of the advisers except one found “the level of the current primary standard is not sufficiently protective of public health.”

But Regan, in his letter outlining the decision, stressed the need to review scientific evidence, and cited the advisers’ finding that the agency’s draft policy assessment “does not provide sufficient information to adequately consider alternative form and level combinations.”

“It is clear that CASAC’s careful review has identified several issues arising in the reconsideration that warrant additional evaluation and review, … including newly available information that has not yet been integrated into the air quality criteria,” he wrote.