Science Advisers Reject EPA's Ozone Plans

In an Oct. 24 letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson, the agency's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee soundly criticized an EPA staff paper that recommended keeping the national ambient air quality standard for ozone at 0.08 ppm averaged over eight hours. The committee said plainly, "There is no scientific justification for retaining the current primary [standard for ozone] of 0.08 ppm," and it unanimously recommended a range of 0.060 to 0.070 ppm for ozone in order to protect human health, particularly in sensitive subpopulations. The advisory panel wrote that a large body of research shows that significant adverse health effects can occur at the present ozone standard and that maintaining this standard would put large numbers of people at risk for respiratory problems. Furthermore, the committee said EPA needs to develop a secondary standard to protect people and other organisms from the impacts of long-term, cumulative exposures to ozone.