One of my labmates sent me this article from the Washington Post this morning, but I didn’t consider really commenting on it until I saw the same story as a headline on the BBC’s webpage here.

I don’t want this blog to become a archive for a scientist’s continual complaints about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but it seems like that’s what’s happening (see here and here).

This time, the EPA has claimed to have created the “most stringent” ozone standard ever for cities. That may be true, but a look at the numbers suggests they could have done a lot more. In fact, if they listened to the unanimous advice of their scientific advisors, the standard would have been dropped even lower. The scientists suggested 60 parts per billion (ppb) (and nothing higher than 70 ppb) from the standard set 10 years ago which was at 84 ppb. In all their infinite wisdom, the EPA lowered it to… 75 ppb. Why not just lower it to 65 ppb and say that you’re listening to scientists and looking out for human health too? Because industry lobbyists fought tooth and nail against the tighter restrictions to save money, even claiming that there is no scientific basis that ozone is a health risk (for those that don’t know, ozone is the nasty stuff that makes smog and causes severe health problems or worse for millions of city-dwellers—that’s in contrast the the good ozone that’s protecting us from UV radiation in the upper atmosphere).

And the cherry on top is that, as the Clean Air Act is written, the EPA is not supposed to factor in cost for the health standards they set, but the Bush-appointed administrator wants to change that too. I guess if that happened, it would provide some justification for not meeting scientific recommendations. As it is now, they’re just completely ignoring them.

Okay, that’s enough, I promise not to post about the EPA for a while…